Choosing more than a school

Last month, I found myself sitting in a circle with my fellow Day School Leadership Training Institute fellows, an extraordinary cohort of new heads of school participating in Prizmah’s intensive two-year leadership fellowship. Prizmah, North America’s network of Jewish day schools, brings together school leaders from across the continent to study everything from governance and finance to enrollment, curriculum and leadership.

During a session on data-driven decision-making, one of my colleagues paused and smiled.

“Sometimes our schools are schools,” he said. “Sometimes they’re summer camp.”

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The room erupted in laughter — and not because it was funny.

Because every one of us knew exactly what he meant.

At every Jewish day school there is a team gathered around a table figuring out how many eggs are needed for the all-school challah bake. There is someone making one last run for dates before the Tu B’shvat seder. There are Shabbaton overnight schedules to finalize, Israel trip chaperones to coordinate, and kindergarten teachers rearranging the morning so 5-year-olds can proudly carry handwritten prayers to a nearby pond for tashlich. There is the painstaking process of swapping students so the Lag BaOmer color war teams are perfectly balanced. There is the all-staff email asking who can grill hundreds of kosher hot dogs. There is the quiet WhatsApp message that a new staff member has just given birth and, before anyone even asks, meals, baby clothes and support are already being organized.

None of those moments appear in a strategic plan. No dashboard captures them. No spreadsheet measures them. Yet they are, perhaps, the most important work we do.

Over the past year, I have had the privilege of visiting more than a dozen Jewish day schools from Houston to Riverdale, Cleveland and beyond. Every school has its own traditions. Every school has its own rhythms. Every school has its own personality.

Yet I walked away from each visit with the same realization: It isn’t about which day school.

It isn’t about CDS. Or Hillel Academy. Or Yeshiva Schools (although I can say with certainty that Pittsburgh’s three Jewish day schools each weave together academics, Jewish values and community in extraordinary ways).
There is a common thread that runs through all day schools.

You see it in the Israeli flags still hanging proudly weeks after Yom HaAtzmaut because no one is quite ready to take them down.

You see it in the postdoc group chats that begin with questions about bulk kosher meat orders but quickly become conversations about where to buy furniture, who has an extra crib, which pediatrician to call and where to find the best hummus in town.

You see it when a new family arrives in August and, before long, they’re hosting or attending Shabbat dinners with people who were strangers only weeks earlier.

You see it when alumni return to coach basketball, judge the science fair, speak to students, or simply stop by to thank the teachers who helped shape them.

You see it in the quiet assumption that when someone celebrates, we all celebrate. When someone grieves, we all grieve. When someone needs help, everyone asks, “What can I do?”

This is not unique to one school. It is the culture of Jewish day schools.

When families ask me why they should choose Jewish day school, I find myself giving a different answer than I would have given a year ago. You are not simply choosing a school. You are choosing the community that will help raise your family.

Research consistently reinforces what so many of us know instinctively. Prizmah’s national research found that Jewish day schools are among the strongest predictors of lifelong Jewish engagement. Graduates are significantly more likely to remain connected to Jewish life, participate in Jewish communal organizations, affiliate with synagogues, sustain meaningful relationships with Israel and raise Jewish families of their own.

Scholar Erica Brown captures the value of day school better than perhaps anyone:

“The best case for day school is not what it delivers in the short term. It’s the life it delivers long after graduation.”

Author Dan Senor has made a complementary argument. He believes Jewish day schools build what he calls “Jewish muscle memory,” the habits, confidence, resilience, and pride that remain long after graduation and inspire alumni to stay deeply connected to the Jewish people and to Israel.

I would add one more thought.

Jewish day schools do not simply build Jewish muscle memory.

They normalize Jewish life.

Children grow up assuming that Shabbat dinners with friends are simply what weekends look like. They assume Hebrew songs echo through the hallways. They assume Jewish holidays are celebrated by an entire community. They assume that caring for one another is not extraordinary; it is expected. That normalization may be the greatest gift a Jewish day school can offer.

If we want thriving synagogues, camps, Federations, agencies, Hillels and community organizations 20 years from now, we must invest in the institutions that cultivate the next generation of Jewish families. The future of Jewish Pittsburgh depends on the strength of our three Jewish day schools.

If we do not invest boldly in our schools, we should not be surprised when our young family population begins to dwindle, communal participation declines and fewer future leaders emerge to sustain the institutions we care so deeply about.

As heads of school, we spend enormous amounts of time discussing curriculum, technology, Hebrew proficiency, tuition, enrollment and test scores. Those conversations matter. But they are not the heart of the story.

The real product of a Jewish day school is not a transcript. It is a Jew who instinctively knows how to live in community. Someone who understands that Judaism is not simply something we believe but something we build together.

The strongest argument for Jewish day school is not that it teaches Hebrew, Torah, or academics exceptionally well.

It teaches children how to live Jewishly. Not for an hour on Sunday. Not for an occasional holiday celebration but rather for the majority of their waking hours during the most formative years of their lives.

Those are the children who, God willing, will one day lead our synagogues, our agencies, our camps, our Federations, our schools and our communities. They will in fact change the world and be leaders in any field, but they will prioritize their Jewish communities wherever they land.

The biggest lesson we offer at day school is that, in fact, our communal responsibility is a fact, it is a way of living. The greatest gift a Jewish day school offers is belonging.

Generations of day school families remain connected long after graduation because they leave with something much more enduring than an education. They leave with a community.
In an age increasingly defined by isolation, fragmentation and individualism, Jewish day schools remain among the few places intentionally cultivating relationships, responsibility, shared purpose and enduring community every single day.

Choosing Jewish day school is not simply choosing where your child will learn.

It is choosing the Jewish future you hope they will inherit.

That is why the case for Jewish day school has always been, and will always be, the case for Jewish community. PJC

Casey Weiss is head of school at Community Day School.