By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Seattle Hebrew Academy celebrated the reopening of its renovated building on June 17 by welcoming its supporters to a dedication of the facility. The celebration, which consisted of families affixing mezuzot to the doorways of rooms which bear their names. It also gave many of those supporters a look at their school for the first time in more than three years, when an earthquake damaged the facility and made the 1909-vintage structure unfit for use.
After considering their options, the school board ultimately decided that staying put made the most sense from both a financial and educational perspective. So they decided to rebuild.
“Nobody was about to buy a broken down building,” said school board president Rebecca Almo. “Our least expensive, most beneficial solution was to stay where we were and fix what we had.”
The past three years have been difficult. The upper and lower schools of the Orthodox academy, which serves from preschool through the seventh grade, had been split between temporary buildings on the Capitol Hill campus and a borrowed facility in Seward Park. Almo said the time away gave them a unique opportunity to step back and gain an understanding of what the school should be.
“Being out of it, we were able to step back and reorganize the spaces,” said Almo, “so it’s very logical now. It follows the program, instead of the reverse.”
Following the program means a more sensible layout. A new, fully equipped science lab, for instance, was moved out of the basement.
“Now it’s right in the middle of the school, so the primary school goes up one floor and the middle school goes down one floor,” Almo said. A large art studio has also been added, and the Early Childhood Education Center, a separate entity from the rest of the academy, gets its own floor and playground.
Steve Hemmat, who sat on the design and construction committee, said that although many of the changes to the school were visible, including larger classrooms and upgrades to facilitate high-tech learning, the largest part of the work done was earthquake retrofitting to ensure the structure can withstand another temblor.
For all of the good cheer from the dedication, attendees understood that there is still work to be done. Circular saws and drywall still sit in the unfinished hallway of the new administrative offices. Also, the capital campaign still has to raise more than $1 million.
Almo said she thinks the remaining $1.15 million of the $9.6 million campaign can be raised by the end of 2004 but it will require hard work on the part of everyone involved. That means the school’s development department and contract fundraiser will continue to solicit the area Jewish community until those goals are fulfilled.
“We need a little more to wrap it up, but hopefully we’ll get there together,” Almo said.
The June 17 dedication was intended to honor the families that had already earned plaques by allowing them to bless the rooms with the presence of a favorite rabbi.
“Because mezuzot are required on the doorposts of all inhabited rooms, their hanging in the Academy building signifies our formal reentry,” said the head of school, Rabbi Shmuel Kay.
Among the celebrants were Larry and Sharon Adatto, who, with their children Yaakov, Malka and Ephraim, affixed a mezuzah on the classroom honoring the children’s grandparents. They asked Rabbi Solomon Maimon to join them and bless their room.
For many families in attendance, the connection to SHA runs deeper than rebuilding a school. Lea Hanan, who toured around the facility with several families and took pictures, said two of her three children attend SHA. One of her kids is entering the second grade, as Hanan was, she said, when she helped her father move into the building in 1973 when SHA took it over.
Almo herself attended SHA — and credited her mother for convincing her to stay when she was unsure that she wanted to.
“At one point I really wanted to leave, probably in eighth grade, and those last two years were critical for me in getting my education, and knowing that the Jewish way is the way and I could never really leave it,” she said.
Since then, four of Almo’s own children have graduated from SHA, with one more still in the school. It is her connection, and the connections that so many other of the school’s families have to the academy that Almo believes can help them complete their fundraising goals and continue to provide their children the education they desire.
“It hasn’t been easy,” she said, but “we’re meeting the challenge. God will help us finish along with everybody else.”