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December 26, 2003/Tevet 1 5764, Vol. 56, No. 14
Recruiting educators
JESNA spearheads effort to obtain day school teachers
STEWART AIN
New York Jewish Week
It has been tried many times before, but the organizers of a new initiative to recruit and retain top Jewish educators insist that this time their efforts will pay off.
What's changed, they say, is that a growing number of people are choosing their professions based on how rewarding they are personally rather than monetarily.
Laura Lauder, an organizer of the effort, says this initiative is seeking to tap into this "cultural shift" that is occurring from coast-to-coast. She notes that at one Jewish day school in California, 10 of the 60 teachers are parents of children in the school who decided to return to the workforce when their children entered school.
"They were looking for a profession that was meaningful," she says.
Jonathan Woocher, president of the Jewish Education Service of North America, acknowledges that this subject has been discussed many times over the years, but he says that what is different this time is that it has the support of a "coalition of people who are cooperating to see that change happens and that change is institutionalized."
"Jewish education is a $3 billion plus enterprise," Woocher says. JESNA's effort, he says, is designed to make sure the field of Jewish education attracts the best and the brightest teachers.
The project, called the Jewish Educator Recruitment/Retention Initiative (JERRI), is being developed as a project of the Covenant Foundation in cooperation with JESNA. It is to be kicked off with a Jewish Education Leadership Summit in February in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Arnee Winshall, co-chairwoman of the event, says that what she envisions is a "strategic plan and a summit where we bring several known intellectuals and those with financial capital to the table ... and begin to see what things can be leveraged to make a difference."
Among the issues to be discussed at the invitation-only summit will be salaries and benefits. A 2000 study by the Board of Jewish Education in New York, found that one third of full-time early childhood teachers working in programs under Jewish auspices in the New York area earned less than $20,000 a year - much less than the starting salaries of rookie teachers in the public schools.
But Woocher says that although salaries and benefits are important in recruitment and retention of Jewish educators, it may not be the key component, given the quest for more meaningful occupations.
He says this new effort would be aimed at "building from the bottom," as opposed to another effort that failed because it had adopted a top-down approach developed without community input.
"This is a different approach in a different time," he says. "Hopefully we have learned."
"This conference is results oriented," adds Lauder. "We're happy that funders will be around the table."
Asked what she would like to see in five years, Lauder says, "I want to see collaboration among national, communal and local institutions with data bases on camp counselors, leaders of Hillel (chapters and others) who may want to get into the teaching force. We need to track and train them and hand hold (to develop) a professional career."
But noting that there are statistics that show a 29 percent career turnover rate among teachers in their first three years of teaching if they are 30 to 39 years old, Lauder says greater effort should be placed on recruiting those interested in second careers, for whom the turnover rate is just 12 percent.
Woocher would like the initiative to correct one blatant failing - the lack of a central address for those who wish to consider a career in Jewish education.
Meredith Woocher, Woocher's daughter and director of JERRI, says there is no hard data on the magnitude of the teacher shortage. As a result, part of the project is to determine the scope of the problem.
"It is equally important that we fund the research to understand both the scope of the problem and what are the most effective solutions," she says.
Meredith Woocher says it remains to be seen how much money would be needed to implement whatever recommendations are eventually developed, but that she hoped a "broad coalition of funders" would be found to raise "several million dollars" over the next several years. The money might be used, she said, to "create high quality induction, mentoring and professional development programs for teachers, as well as a broad marketing campaign to reach potential Jewish educators."
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