Local News

SJCS founder retakes helm as its leader

By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent

Debbie Butler’s connections to the Seattle Jewish Community School date back to the earliest days of the school, which she helped found in 1991. At the time, she served as the school’s first principal, before leaving in 1995 to become a consultant and raise her then-small children.
Subsequently, Butler became a family resources coordinator at Boyer Children’s Clinic. Last year, with her own kids nearly grown, she returned as the interim Head-of-School, committing herself to stay for two years while the board searched for a permanent leader. This summer, she decided she was ready to take it on permanently. At their September meeting the school’s board of directors voted unanimously to offer her the job.
“It’s really different,” she said. “When the kids were small, it was very hard to juggle it all — the way I wanted to be a principal and the way I wanted to be a parent. It was a good choice, and I’m now happy to be back.”
SJCS board president Howie Klein said the board found Butler’s performance over the last 16 months “to be extraordinary.”
“Debbie was selected as our interim head,” said Klein, “and over that time period the board, obviously, was thinking about who should lead the school over the long term, and it essentially became very apparent to us over that time period that the right person was already in the building. We chose not to do a nationwide search. We decided that would not be in the best interests of the school, and we became quite convinced that the end result of a nationwide search would find no person better than Debbie.
“We had certainly gotten a lot of feedback from a number of outside experts, all of whom had been singing her praises.”
Butler, who attended Brandeis University and is certified in elementary education, is experienced in teaching both general and Judaic studies, so she is able to supervise both ends of the teaching program at SJCS. A 20-year resident of the Seattle area, she previously worked at the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston and taught in both public and private schools.
Since her return, Butler has spearheaded a full curriculum review for the school, something she said had not been done in several years. Her intention, she said, is to have a “cyclical curricular review.”
“I started with math and I’ve been systematically going through the curriculum.”
Next up will be the institution of a formal physical education program.
“As things get formalized, I will continue going through each area of the curriculum until we’ve gone through everything,” Butler said. “Then I’ll probably start over.”
In addition to the review, Butler has introduced or reintroduced some new elements to the school’s curriculum.
“I brought in a new handwriting program for Hebrew writing, so we’ve standardized it throughout the school. But we’ve done that for English handwriting, as well,” she said.
Butler has also reinstituted a social problem-solving program for the students called the Ladder of Success.
“Basically, if you’re having an argument with someone, you’re in the ‘red’ — trying to find some way to get in the ‘green,’” Butler explained. “That was a program that I brought on board when I first started.
“We started a Fresh Start program so that children who did not have previous experience with Hebrew or Judaic Studies could enter at any grade, and that’s been going very well.” The program uses a teaching assistant in teamed classrooms as well as a summer tutoring program.
Butler said the underlying theme throughout the entire curriculum, living as an ethical person, has been kept in the forefront.
“We stress derech eretz here — how to be a mensch in the world,” she said. “I’m very involved with that and talk with the kids about it quite often.”
Klein, SJCS board president, said that even before moving from Temple Beth Am’s building, where the school had been housed, into a new building in the Northgate area, increasing the school’s enrollment was among the highest priorities for SJCS.
“We now have our largest kindergarten class in, I think, three years and more new families than I recall in my seven or eight years with this school,” he said.
Butler said she anticipates a kindergarten class of about 20 children in coming years.
“We’re talking about whether we want to have two kindergarten classes of 15 each,” she said. “I would like to fill up the school, so that each class has 15 to 20 in each class. That’ll take a couple of years.”
Also looming in the future is the possibility of buying the building, which SJCS currently rents. Butler said the building became available a short time ago, and the administration and board are thinking about raising the money to purchase it as a permanent home for the school.
“It could be a forever-after site — there’s room to grow, there’s a lot of room upstairs. There’s a full science lab upstairs that we currently do not use, with all the science bays already there and all the sinks,” Butler said. “I would love to be able to buy this building and be able to move upstairs. We’re finding that the location is very central. It’s right off I-5. It’s very convenient for a lot of people who, the first time they come out here always say, ‘Gee, I thought it was going to be farther.’ It’s much closer than it appears. So, I’m hoping that we will buy this building. I think it could be a real long-term home for us.”