If you have not done so already, please complete the One Question Survey – What time(s) do you prefer for High School?. Use the comment section to suggest other times if the suggested ones don’t work for your family.
Faculty
Cary Mannaberg and Sam Arnold will be teaching the High School this year. Both of them will be familiar to our students and many of our parents. Cary is a retired public school shop teacher and member of TBI who has been teaching 4th grade in our school for a number of years. Sam is a junior at WMU, majoring in Early Childhood Education with plans for rabbinic school after college. Steph Haft has been hired as a consultant for teacher training and to continue the development of our curriculum.
We have been recruiting for a high school teacher to replace Steph for two years. All the while, Cary and Sam have been asking me if they could teach high school because they both have a passion for its success. I was not willing to lose them in the Lower El but we negotiated for Cary and Sam to take on the high school while also teaching the younger students. Having the combination of Cary, a local congregant who is rooted in our community, a young adult with Sam’s skills being trained by Steph is quite a catch and hopefully will set us up for stability and growth in our high school program. We are evaluating ways to invite other Jewish teens in Michigan to join us and grow our program. This can happen because of the multi access choices we have built into the program this year.
Curriculum
We will be continuing the Jewish Values – Social Action program that Steph developed. This year’s scheduled Jewish Social Studies track is Israel and we are lucky that Rabbi Estrin is with us and has agreed to offer an Israel lesson each month. We have been awarded a grant to implement Better Together (a nationally recognized curriculum that brings older adults and teens together). We are looking forward to a great high school year!
Schedule
We have been talking about moving the High School time slot for several years in hopes that we can begin to add the flavor of a youth group to go along with our academic program. Change is rarely easy and we realize that this time change may pose challenges to some. If parents or students find the schedule suggestions in the recent survey difficult, please use the Comments section of the survey or simply let me know what times would work better for your family. At this stage, our curriculum has been defined and we are asking for input from families about the schedule changes that must be made to make this work.
If you have not done so already, please complete the One Question Survey – What time(s) do you prefer for High School?. Use the comment section to suggest other times if the suggested ones don’t work for your family.