The Schechter Residency in Educational Leadership (SREL) Fellowship) is awarded to a Schechter Day School that engages a recently ordained rabbi who aspires to a career in a Jewish day school.  The school must have demonstrated evidence that it can provide mentoring and a diversified leadership experience for the rabbi over a period of three years.  

A subsidy of $30,000 each year for a maximum of three years is provided by the Schechter Association to the residency school in order for it to provide the rabbi a more generous rabbinic salary. The residency school must meet the stipulated requirements in order to ensure an appropriate professional growth experience for the Fellow. If your school is looking to engage a school rabbi for 2011-2012, this is the time to file an application to become a residency school, provided that you are prepared to hire a rabbi who has been recently ordained or will be ordained this spring from JTS or the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies.

SREL rabbis are expected to make a three year commitment to serve in a Solomon Schechter Day School. The application procedure, revised last year, is as follows: Schechter schools seeking a rabbi will advertise the position utilizing the placement services of the SSDS Association and the Rabbinical Assembly.  Once the school has identified the candidate that it wishes to hire, it will extend a provisional offer to the rabbi and inform the SSDSA to this effect. The SREL committee will interview the candidate or candidates and make a final decision about the new recipient of the SREL Fellowship for the coming year. 

There is only one new SREL award given out each year, with a possible maximum of three fellows serving different school in any one year.  Candidates will be able to schedule their in-person interview at JTS as part of the Interview Week process if they are being seriously considered for employment at a specific Schechter day school.  If no-one has yet received an offer, an interview via Skype will be set up at a mutually convenient and appropriate time.

The Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks Project is currently recruiting outstanding day schools for its seventh cohort for the 2011-2012 academic school year.

The Project:

• Provides schools' Judaic studies departments with a year-long professional development program in the effective application of TaNaKH standards and benchmarks.
• Supports Jewish day schools in their efforts to create a coherent and articulated vision for teaching and learning TaNaKH and ultimately all Judaic subjects.
• Enhances Judaic studies leaders' instructional leadership skills through coaching, mentoring, and participation in three instructional leadership institutes.

A Standards-Based Curriculum

• Articulates goals for teaching and learning
• Engages students' learning
• Focuses instruction and learning
• Develops students' critical thinking skills
• Fosters collaborative faculty planning

For more information and an application for your school, please contact:

Charlotte Abramson, Director

Chabramson@jtsa.edu

212-280-6018

Visit our website: www.jtsa.edu/standardsbenchmarks.xml

                                           The Melton Research Center for Jewish Education

SUMMER 2011 PROFESSIONAL GROWTH AND TRAINING PROGRAMS:

The Jewish Women's Archive 2011 Institute for Educators will be held July 10-14, 2011,in Waltham, MA. Participants will work with leading scholars and master teachers and useJWA's new online curriculum Living the Legacy, which explores the role of Jews in the Civil Rights Movement.

The schedule for the North American

Jewish Day School Conference is available at www.jewishdayschoolconference.org.

MAZAL TOV to the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan that has just moved into the school's beautiful new premises at 805 Columbus Ave in Manhattan.  May the school community grow and flourish in its new home!