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March 12, 1999/24 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 24
Day school expansions bring increased choices
Tri-City JCC, Solel planning new offerings
MICHELLE ACKERMAN
Staff Writer
Options are expanding in the Valley this fall for parents who want to send their children to a Jewish day school. Beginning with the 1999-2000 school year, the Tri-City Jewish Community Center will offer an elementary school, and The Solel School will offer a middle school.
The JCC, located at 1965 E. Hermosa Drive in Tempe, which has previously offered a preschool and kindergarten, will add a first grade come fall, and will continue to add a new grade each year through the sixth grade. Expansion through eighth grade hasn't yet been ruled out.
Cynthia Benedict, the school's director, said she feels now is the time for expansion, based on the overwhelming parent support the school received in response to the proposal.
"There's ... a growing disillusionment with certain local schools - not the districts, but certain individual schools - where some of our members live," she explained. "(This is) because of class size. Having had their children here since they were infants, they've grown accustomed to the advantages of having small classes, and individualized instruction and a more nurturing environment than in public school situations."
The expansion was approved by the JCC's board of managers last April.
The first grade program, which so far has eight students enrolled, is being developed with the help of local religious school directors and primary grade teachers, and the Salt Lake City JCC Day School.
Deena Charnofsky, who is in her fourth year as the kindergarten teacher at the Tri-City JCC, has been tapped to take over the first grade, and a new kindergarten teacher will be hired.
An $8,000 grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix's Commission on Jewish Continuity and Community, which was approved in June of 1998, will help with some of the start-up costs, while additional funding will come from tuition fees, fund-raising activities and donations.
Administrators at The Solel School, located at Temple Solel, 6805 E. McDonald Drive in Paradise Valley, also plan to apply for grants to help cover the costs of their new middle school, which was approved Feb. 25 by the school's board of trustees and is planned to run through eighth grade. Still, most of the school's costs will be covered by tuition fees, with Temple Solel underwriting the remainder of expenses.
While administrators anticipate housing next year's inaugural fifth-grade class at The Solel School's current location, Director of Education Bonnie Morris says they are searching for a new campus - one that would be big enough to eventually house the entire school, preschool through eighth grade.
Though the search for a teacher has just begun, the curriculum is firming up. It is being developed with help from Scottsdale and Paradise Valley middle schools, PARDeS (Progressive Association for Reform Day Schools, an affiliate of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations), and a similar school in Massachusetts.
"The education offered is highly personalized," Morris explained. "We are very interested in children learning how to problem-solve and access technology."
She also emphasized that the school, which currently has nine students enrolled in the new fifth grade, is a "synagogue-based school," meaning that "the determination of the curricula and philosophy should be in the hands of our Jewish leaders and assisted by the Jewish educational leaders."
"Middle school is the time when students make a strong shift from experiential to experimental learning," explained Morris. "It's also likely that the difficult emotional and intellectual challenges of early adolescence can better be met in the tailored environment, and in a safe and empowering setting, infused with Jewish values."
Both schools are currently accepting students for the new grades.
Also, the King David School (formerly Solomon Schechter Day School, which is planning to move in the fall to Temple Beth Israel in conjunction with becoming an independent, non-denominational day school) is adding an eighth-grade class for the 1999-2000 year.
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