By Elisheva Goldberg , other
Leaders of the Jewish Day School of Greater Seattle feel as if they’ve gotten lucky. It’s not the sort of luck you find in a fortune cookie, it’s more the kind of having run into an old friend bearing good news. Beginning July 1, Maria Erlitz, a former JDS head of school, became the new interim head of school for JDS, and it appears to be a match made in heaven.
“It doesn’t get much better than having her on board,” said Cindy Benedek, JDS’ director of admissions and a school parent. “We’re only benefiting from all of her years of experience.”
The excitement Benedek feels has been reflected in the JDS community and in what board president Bob Sulkin called “an outpouring of excitement.”
Erlitz takes the helm of the K-8 Bellevue school as the board launches a search to replace its past head of school, Tom Elieff, who left for Houston after three years in the position. During his term, Elieff spearheaded what the JDS Web site called the “largest financial initiative in the school’s history”: to finance a multitude of projects that included its new middle school-regulation-size gymnasium, a “safe-and-sound” remodeling of various school areas, and a $3 million endowment to guarantee the long-term fiscal well-being of the school.
The incoming head of school, Maria Erlitz, has devoted much of the last two decades of her life to the concept of Jewish education in North America. Twenty-seven years ago, she joined with a few other Seattle-area parents to help found JDS, a school she says they envisioned as “a community day school open to all desirous of an intensive Jewish education, integrated with the finest general studies curriculum possible.”
Erlitz holds a Master’s degree in Education from Columbia University, and she has worked for JDS in various capacities since then: as the board chair for three years; as transition coordinator for three months during a change of administration; as the assistant principal; and, finally, as head of school, a job she left in June 2001 after spending three years in that capacity.
For the past six years, Erlitz has been working as a lead coach for PEJE, the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, working with both teachers and board members to fulfill its mission of “strengthening the Jewish day school movement in North America by increasing enrollment,” according to the PEJE Web site.
PEJE is a 10-year-old organization that has helped to bring a range of options and services to the day schools of North America. Faculty and board members can attend conferences on subjects from school finance to recruitment, and PEJE gives significant grants for school improvement in a variety of areas.
Erlitz described what she did for PEJE as trying “to make schools more effective and efficient at what they do.” Her job took her across the country, guiding board members and faculty of Jewish schools in Florida, Pennsylvania, California and New York, and now can give her an opportunity put her recently acquired skills to work for a school close to her heart.
Erlitz said she welcomed the opportunity to return to the school, even if is for a limited amount of time.
“I want the greater Seattle community to realize what a gem it has and to make that available to more and more families,” she said.