Strengthening Connections in your Synagogue

Strengthening Connections in your Synagogue

As August and September approach, our focus shifts to building relationships with the families and other in our synagogue community. On a recent Listserv thread, directors from across the country shared tried and true tips on creating and strengthening early childhood connections with religious school families, clergy, professional staff, and congregations. Below are excerpts from this discussion. Your idea might even be listed.

Through integrated and joint programming:

• “Our pre-K students get to spend a morning or afternoon with the kindergarten religious school class.”
• “We offer a three-session “bridge” program in the spring for pre-k kids entering kindergarten to experience the religious school kindergarten.”
• “Families are invited to an “open house” in the spring at the religious school.”
• “We plan events – generally around a holiday for preschool families and K-2 religious school families”
• “We plan adult only events for preschool and religious school together.”
• “In April we jointly send an email to the “graduating” kids and welcome them to religious school and to register.”
• “The religious school offers ‘a morning in religious school’ for the pre-K group each year.”
• “This year, we are offering a monthly parent coffee and the clergy and educators are taking turns being our special guest at that coffee.”
• “The “Mystery Reader”, where senior congregants come read to the ECC children.”

Through clergy participation:

• “The Rabbi and Cantor lead weekly Friday morning Shabbats and rotate weekly for Judaics.   In January we begin having Kings and Queens for Shabbat which is represented by one class.  After Shabbat, the family of the Kings and Queens are invited for bagels and coffee with the clergy.” 
• “Clergy lead all Tot Shabbats and attend most PTO functions.” 
• “Our clergy alternate joining the preschool for Shabbat and some holiday celebrations. In the second half of the year, our rabbi comes by the school for a weekly visit.”
• “Clergy participate in Monday morning Havdalah in the 4s. We have a school-wide Shabbat celebration in the sanctuary with clergy every Friday, weekly small-group sing for the 2s with Cantor.”
• “Cantor comes to the class for singing each week.”
• “The Rabbi, with a child in the preschool, invites parents with young children for a Shabbat gathering once a month.” 
• “Clergy is all invited to attend every meeting and program; the preschool shares information with senior staff and suggests direct contacts when it seems beneficial.”

At the board/lay leadership level:   

• “We have monthly Board of Trustee meetings.  We discuss all areas of early childhood including new curriculum, ideas, programming, and events; and invite our members to any programs we have.” 
• “I sit on the board of the Temple (as does all senior staff, non-voting) and am included in all congregation-wide programming.”
• “The preschool has a parent on the board and our ‘parent advisory council’ is invited to participate at board meetings.” 
• “The congregation often requests preschool parents to sit on committees.”
• “I attend several programs at the Synagogue.”
•  “A select group of preschool parents is invited for free to the annual gala sponsored by the Temple.”
• “I ask parents to serve on congregational committees.”
• “I invite parents to attend specific congregational events when appropriate.”
•  “We have a board of education made up of various members of our synagogue. We meet four times a year.” 
• “I work closely with our education director and one thing we have instituted is that we ask our parent committees to come together once a year to talk about how we build bridges from preschool to religious school.”
• “We send weekly newsletters to the congregation.”

At the professional staff level

• “I am a full member of the senior staff and we meet on a weekly basis. And, the senior rabbi is my supervisor and we attempt to meet once a month.”
• “We have a very strong senior staff—we socialize outside of the building and also support each other percent in all programming whenever possible.”
•  Our religious school director attends many of our Tot Shabbats and PTO-hosted events.  She also attends our Pre-K graduation, addresses the parents and gives a certificate to all of the graduating students for free religious school in Kindergarten.” 
•  “The religious school director scheduled time with the visiting Shinshinit once per week for an afternoon enrichment program.”
• “The Temple is really good about including and highlighting me as part of the senior staff.”
• “We stopped working in a silo and many events are one big group effort.”
• “The religious school director and I work very closely together anyway.  However, we try to have an Early Childhood Learning Center teacher also teach kindergarten in the religious school.”
• “We are making a more concerted effort to have our education director visible in the preschool periodically and encourage families who do go on to a religious school to share their experiences.”