Best of both worlds

Two different principals share common goals for high school

CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer

Though coming from very different backgrounds, Rabbi Laibel Blotner, left, and Robert Templin, the two principals at Phoenix Preparatory High School, share a common goal of providing an outstanding education for students in a safe environment.

In designing a building, architects rely on the concept that two different, opposing elements can come together to create something far stronger than the sum of its separate parts.

That same concept is at work at the Phoenix Preparatory High School at the Chabad Lubavitch Center, where two principals - one for academics and one for Judaic studies - are nearly as different from each other as two men might be; yet together they make quite a team.

Rabbi Laibel Blotner, the Judaic studies principal, grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household in Worcester, Mass., the son of a Chabad rabbi. He is 27 "and a half" years old, he says, making a distinct point of including those last six months of his life in his age. He attended yeshiva and received his rabbinical ordination in New York City. He moved to the Phoenix area last year with his wife, Gitty, and two children, Tayna, 2, and Moshe, 10 months.

Robert Templin, the academic principal, grew up in a Quaker home in Phoenix. He moved to Phoenix from Chicago when he was just 3 years old. He is 54 years old (almost twice Blotner's age) and attended North (Phoenix) High School, Phoenix College and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He is married to Marcia and has three children - Sarah, 16; Joseph, 18; and Mark, 24.

Both men are deeply committed to their joint goal of presiding over a top-notch high school where any of the Valley's Jewish children can receive an outstanding education in a safe environment.

Dual vocations
Blotner says he decided at a young age that he wanted to become a rabbi, but didn't realize until later that he also wanted to be a professional educator.

"I enjoyed religion. I enjoyed the fact that (as a rabbi) I'd be working with other people, teaching them about the importance and beauty that Judaism has to offer," Blotner says. "The truth is, I wasn't sure what field I would choose."

As part of his training, Blotner in 1992-93 taught and took classes at the Sydney Yeshiva Boys' High School in Sydney, Australia. The community school is open to all Australian Jewish boys but operates under the auspices of Chabad, Blotner says. Prior to taking his current position, he taught Judaic studies for three years at the Educational Institute Ohelai Torah, a Chabad school in Brooklyn, N.Y.

He says that while in New York he learned about the Judaic studies principal position in Phoenix from a friend who was a relative of Rabbi Zalman Levertov of the Chabad Lubavitch Center.

"I know from my prior experience that I always got along well with children, that I worked well with children and students, and I enjoyed teaching. I always enjoyed lecturing," Blotner says. "I felt that the position of a principal is a sort of leadership role, and at the same time it gives me the chance to work with students. So I was very happy to take it."

Blotner says he has found the transition to life in Phoenix to be much easier than he expected because of Levertov's help.

Almost a native
Templin spent nearly 30 years as a teacher, coach and administrator in southern Arizona, mostly in Tucson. He said a great deal of thought went into his decision to become the Phoenix Preparatory High School's academic principal.

"One of the things that I think is important when you select someone for a job (is that) the 'marriage' needs to be compatible," Templin says. "When Rabbi Levertov explained the vision of this school and the needs of the community, I was very excited. ... I have to believe in who I work with and what I'm doing to be here, and then I throw myself in like a zealot."

Templin says that the transition from secular schools to a Jewish school was not that difficult, despite his Quaker background. (Quakers, members of the Religious Society of Friends, are Christians who believe that a personal relationship with Christ, described as the Inner Light, is most important - not ceremony and ritual. They are known for being pacifists.)

"One thing that I feel really strongly about (is that) we're all Jews," Templin says. "The foundation of Western religion is Judaism. I've learned something almost every day from Rabbi Blotner or Rabbi Levertov about my own religion, and I find it very complementary to my own religious belief system."

Templin says working at the school has been educational in other ways; for example, he has learned firsthand the benefits of separate classes for boys and girls. He says he'd never been in a school setting that kept boys and girls separated before, but he has found that "we (get) more done.... It's been very productive (and) a good decision for us."

Learning from experience
Blotner says moving to the West has been a real learning experience for him. He notes that the lifestyle is much more laid-back than what he had been accustomed to in New York.

"It is different (here)," Blotner says. "But it is enjoyable."

Blotner says his co-administrator's religion has in no way interfered with their ability to work together to accomplish their shared goals for the school. Blotner notes that Jewish law requires that a job be filled by the person who can best do that job, without consideration of whether the person is Jewish or non-Jewish.

"We are interested in building a very strong academic school that will be an alternative to public schools," Blotner says. "And for us, automatically, the religious issue, whether (Templin) is Jewish or not Jewish, would not really make a difference, because our focus and his focus are education."

Decisions at the school are made cooperatively.
"We really look at the wisdom of what's best for the kids," Templin says. "We all agree on that."

Blotner agrees that he and Templin work together to ensure their students get a strong education, while also learning about their Jewish heritage.

"We don't force anything upon any students; we don't expect them to change their lifestyle," Blotner notes. "We expect them to be the way they are, but we want them to learn about their heritage and to enjoy it."

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