Defining Excellence in Our Jewish Day Schools and Yeshivot
After spending decades consulting to numerous Jewish day schools and yeshivot, I’ve seen numerous schools and communities that use the word “excellence”, but very few truly understand what it really looks like.
Schools of excellence, as they are referred to, are not about promoting high student test scores; they are not schools housed in beautiful modern state-of-the art facilities; and they do not display banners or logos that read “We are a Proud School of Excellence.”
Here is what a school of excellence really looks like when you actually walk through its doors and corridors.
First, you feel it before you even see it, and you sense it in the hallways.
A school of excellence has a soul. Students look you in the eye. Teachers call students by name, and not just their own students, all students. The front office knows who had a rough morning. There is joy, but also order. You can hear learning, not silence, but productive environment that hums and permeates throughout the entire building.
Excellence is a culture, not a program where leadership serves, and doesn’t just manage.
In an average school, the principal manages schedules. In a school of excellence, leadership serves the teachers so that teachers can serve the students.
In a school of excellence, the Rosh HaYeshiva, Dean, head of school or principal asks four questions every day:
- What did I do today to make a teacher better?
- What did I do today to make a student feel seen?
- What did I do today to protect the mission from distractions?
- What will I do tomorrow to do a better job?
Excellence dies when leadership chases trends. Excellence thrives when leadership protects values and possesses clarity of purpose.
In schools of excellence, every child has a “champion.”
In a regular school, every child has a teacher. In a school of excellence, every child has a champion who is committed to their success. Who will call home not just when there is a problem, but when there is a win. Who will say to the student “I know you can do more and better, because I believe in you.”
As we know, data always drives instruction, but relationships drive learning.
Torah and excellence are not two separate tracks. They are integrated into one single unified unit.
This is especially true for a Jewish day school and yeshiva. A school of excellence does not have Judaics and General Studies competing for time. It has a unified mission: to build a mensch who is also a scholar and a ben Torah who is also a critical thinker. And an American who is also deeply and proudly Jewish.
Topics such as resilience, hope and purpose are taught not just in Chumash class, but in how the school coach or recess supervisor handles conflict on the basketball court.
In a school of excellence, teachers and rabbeim are learners, not just employees.
Walk into the faculty room of a school of excellence and you will hear teachers talking about pedagogy, or diverei Torah, not just the burden of paperwork. They are being coached, not evaluated. They observe each other. They study.
A mediocre school spends a large portion of its budget on new technology. A school of excellence spends it on developing its teachers. Because technology never changed a child’s life, but a teacher did.
In a school of excellence, parents are partners, not customers or a catch-phrase in the school’s recruitment brochure.
In a school of excellence, parents do not ask “what are you going to do about my child?” but rather “what are we going to do?” The school communicates constantly, not just bad news. It educates with parents on its mission and holds them accountable to it.
Schools don’t succeed despite parents, they succeed because parents understand from the get-go that their school represents a sacred partnership.
These schools always measures what matters.
Finally, a school of excellence does not just ask: what were the SAT scores? but rather are our graduates kind role models. Do they exhibit derech ertetz, middot tovot and menchlichkiet.
Do they still keep all the halachot of Shabbat when no one is watching?
Do they stand up for Israel on a college campus when it is difficult, hard and dangerously challenging?
Do they relate to their parents with respect?
Do they have the resilience to fail and try again?
If a school graduates a valedictorian who is a bully, it has failed. If it graduates a B student who is a mensch, a leader, and a proud Jew, it has succeeded.
A school of excellence is strong enough to feel everything and still stand. It is not perfect, it has many cracks but it is precisely in those cracks that it allows light and prayers to enter.
That is what you have been building these schools all these years.
At the end of the day, a Jewish day school or yeshiva that prides itself as school of excellence is one which ensures that their parents view middot tovot as being just as important as language arts or math.
Finally, a Jewish day school and yeshiva of excellence is a shining beacon of bright light for its community and a sparkling jewel in its crown. It promotes high standards and Jewish values while exhibiting a true sense of mission, purpose, direction, and moral clarity for its students, faculty and parent body.
Friends, we need more schools of Jewish educational excellence.
Lets make it happen!
