By Lillian Cohen-Moore , other
Hebrew High, the 40-year-old program for Jewish teens in Seattle, is gaining a new partner. Seattle’s Torah High, a three-year-old accredited supplementary religious school, will merge with Hebrew High starting this fall, for a one-year trial run.
Hebrew High is an elective-based program aimed at teens grades 9 through 12, and is administered by the Jewish Education Department of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Torah High’s origins hail from a program in Toronto, Ont., started by Rabbi Glen Black, that creates courses for Jewish teens that organizers hope they find exciting while being educational at the same time.
The Seattle Torah High began as a pilot program in the U.S. — stricter regulations here made getting accreditation, which allows students to take the classes for credit, a bigger challenge than in Canada.
“For us, it’s been very, very difficult, and we’re the first one in the country to actually do it successfully,” Ari Hoffman, Torah High’s dean, said. “Everybody else tries to do it by latching onto some other school, and we weren’t able to.”
Hoffman looked to local day schools to see how they achieved accreditation. Torah High used the same agency, but as a supplementary educational school, a designation specific to after-school programs.
The partnership of the two schools comes from the mutually attractive features of both programs.
“They’re excellent at their marketing, and they’ve worked really hard over the past three years to become an accredited school, and that is something we’ve been really interested in,” said Amy Hilzman-Paquette, Hebrew High’s principal. “It’s a very arduous process.”
The idea of working together came about when Hoffman, wanting to ensure the two programs didn’t collide, met with Hilzman-Paquette and they decided running two similar programs no longer made sense. That laid the groundwork for this partnership.
While students will not be likely to see much difference between the two programs, financial considerations keep the two schools from officially becoming a single entity.
Torah High’s funding includes a grant from the Samis Foundation, which approved the high school as an exception to its usual funding for local Jewish day schools, due to what Samis grants administrator Rob Toren called its “out-of-the-box thinking.” The grant is restricted to use for Torah High staffing. Similarly, Hebrew High’s teachers are paid out of the Jewish Federation’s education division budget.
“For all intents and purposes, I would say Hebrew High doesn’t change, it just increases in its options,” Hilzman-Paquette said. “It’s definitely augmented. I think what people will see more is opportunities to attend Shabbatons, visits to Israel, go to New York.”
The origins of each school are different as well: Torah High is affiliated with the Orthodox youth group the National Council of Synagogue Youth, though its offerings are available to Jewish students of any background. Hebrew High students’ backgrounds have historically been more diverse.
“Our student body represents Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Israeli, unaffiliated, secular. We have a broad range,” Hilzman-Paquette said. “It’s the only community school in the area that’s not affiliated with any movement. Our teachers are Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, secular and unaffiliated. We really represent our student body.”
Classes will be held on Wednesday evenings at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island.
Hebrew High has offered courses ranging from Kaplan prep to cooking, while titles in Torah High’s curriculum have ranged from Beit Midrash to Rock Band Jew.0. Both programs anticipate seeing an increase in student numbers as they take advantage of the other’s offerings. Torah High tried out giveaways last fall, with prizes ranging from iPods to a 42-inch TV, but the electronics didn’t draw students as much as the programming, Hoffman said.
While Torah High has gone from its probationary to fully accredited status, Hoffman still wants more chances to reach a larger number of young Jewish students, making a partnership with a similar program a good match.
“My goal is really to make sure every single teenager in Seattle has something Jewish to do,” he said. “I want to make sure they have trips to go on, clubs to go to, even just somewhere to snag a snack with their friends who are Jewish.”
Hoffman has operated trips for Torah High students that have taken them to such diverse locales as the Ukraine, Israel, and New York. Hoffman explained Torah High’s ability to offer unique summer trips has inspired and impassioned students, turning out new leaders anxious to be “the best Jews they can be,” he said.
As far as the merger is concerned, Hoffman said he hopes it works well.
“I hope it’ll be a natural thing,” he said, “that if you’re not going to send your kid to formal 9-5 Jewish education, you’d send your kids to Hebrew High. When the economy takes a downturn, it’s the first thing people cut. And that’s unfortunate. I want people to think of it as so valuable that they’d never consider getting rid of it. For me, any kids we can keep affiliated, as many kids as we can keep in the fold, that’s what I want.”