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May 14, 2004/Iyar 23 5764, Vol. 56, No. 34
Jewish day school keeps up with the times
BETH OLSON
Staff Writer
For nearly 40 years, the Phoenix Hebrew Academy has been providing Jewish day school education to Jewish children in the Valley.
Despite its long-standing role in the community, the academy is constantly striving to update its curriculum, according to Principal Rabbi Harris Cooperman.
"Curriculum is an ongoing process," says Cooperman. "It's an ever-developing, ever-evolving process."
Like other private schools, the academy uses the state standards at each grade level to ensure that what students are learning in general studies is in line with other schools in the state. Cooperman says they also take a look at the guidelines for the Madison School District - the public school district in whose boundaries the academy falls. Once they've looked at the minimum standards, the teachers and administrators at the school design a curriculum that exceeds those standards.
"By the time the children finish in the school," says Cooperman, "they certainly will have far exceeded the state guidelines in math and reading and language arts and so on. ... About 90 percent of our graduates go into advanced classes or honors classes."
Cooperman relies heavily on the school's classroom teachers in making curriculum decisions.
"Good principals listen to good teachers," he explains. "You listen to teachers, especially those who work in the field and know what's going on and what works and what doesn't work."
Teachers at the school are kept up-to-date with workshops, seminars and inservice days. In addition, the school belongs to Torah U'Mesorah, an umbrella organization for Hebrew day schools in North America. Torah U'Mesorah issues guidelines that include the amount of time to be spent on Judaic studies and curriculum. Cooperman is a member of the Torah U'Mesorah consortium, with about a dozen members, that is responsible for how Hebrew day schools in the United States and Canada teach Bible studies.
"We're dealing with Bible curriculum - what should be taught at what grade level, what should be emphasized, what skills do we want the kids to come out with," he explains.
While public school students take the AIMS and Stanford 9 standardized tests, students at the academy take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS), along with the other Torah U'Mesorah schools, which Cooperman says is essential in determining how his school stacks up against other Hebrew day schools in North America.
Additionally, the school strives to keep current with technology. Cooperman recently participated in a conference for principals of Torah U'Mesorah schools at which he attended a seminar about using teleconferencing in the classroom. He hopes to institute that type of program in the near future at the academy, in the hopes of sharing teachers with the other local day schools, getting the students to have personal contact with Israeli youth and bringing in speakers that would be logistically impossible without teleconferencing equipment.
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