September 16 Deans letter

Dear Parents, now that the new school year has begun, it is really a pleasure to see our students walking happily through the halls and attending to their work. I would like to extend public thanks to The DeRabbanan Fund for agreeing to purchase a Smart Board for our high school division. Until this point, all of the Smart Boards have been in the elementary classrooms, and the NEAT teachers are looking forward to having a Smart Board to use in the high school. While visiting a class with a Smart Board earlier this week, the students’ excitement for learning was clearly evident. I also want to offer special thanks to Mr. Sam and Mrs. Esther Chester for the donation of a new electric piano to the school. The piano will be used for music classes by our music teacher and for the various dramatic and Chanukah performances each year. Although the school solicits needed direct donations for our operating budget, we also recognize that some people prefer to designate gifts towards specific projects. We not only welcome these gifts but believe that they have a significant impact on our children’s education.

One of the challenges that schools and parents face today is the rising cost of tuition and the affordability of a day school education. The Orthodox Union has sent out a request for grant proposals for “out-of-the-box ideas” to make our schools more affordable that could be implemented in other communities. The OU would give a stipend to the school for creating and implementing a plan over three years that could be replicated elsewhere and that would make schools more affordable. We are looking to apply for this grant; a committee is studying the topic and looking for any ideas that you may have to achieve this goal. Please contact me this week if you have any ideas.

This week, I attended a special meeting of day school principals in New York. Among the issues that were raised were the challenges of bullying and poor middos in many of the schools. While the schools do put forth much effort to deal with these difficulties, they report minimal success. Torah Umesorah is actually considering a nationwide push to improve the level of middos in schools. Rabbi Shneur Eisenstark, a veteran menahel from Canada, made a profound statement. He said, “Middos are not taught in the classroom; they are taught by