Integration

September Brings New Dialogue and New Beginnings to the Entire Congregation

The fact that the beginning of a new school year coincides with the Jewish New Year is one that is not lost on educators in Jewish settings.  As they set up their classrooms and begin building relationships with new students and their families, they also find themselves reflecting on the year that passed.  They consider the development that their students made throughout the year, and they also consider the progress they made as educators and professionals.  They remember the changes that were put into place that improved the learning and working environments, and they question what they might need or want to change going forward.  This process happens year after year and becomes a ritual that many educators come to expect and enjoy.

Reflection at the beginning of the school year becomes even more useful when congregational stakeholders are involved in the process. 

Clergy
Planning with clergy for High Holy Days observances in the early childhood center allows even experienced educators to add new elements to the holiday experience for their students.  If you begin the dialogue, you will likely bring fresh ideas that your early childhood educators have not yet considered.  Reflections of the past year, as viewed through your eyes and with open dialogue, may add an entirely new perspective to consider.

Religious School Director
It is easy to list the differences between an early childhood director’s job and a religious school director’s job.  At the start of a new year, though, it is important to notice the similarities.  Both are focused on beautifying the classrooms, training staff, meeting and welcoming new families to the programs and our synagogues and helping them find their place in our Jewish community.  Both directors do this under the umbrella of the High Holy Days and the importance of new beginnings.  In truth, the first day of school is the first day of school, no matter the age of the student.  As colleagues, it is the perfect time to begin a new dialogue and say, “I can relate to you.  I can empathize with you. I feel your sense of urgency and excitement at this time of new beginnings. I get it!”

Lay Leaders
This time of year presents a unique opportunity for new and returning Board members to see the hope of new beginnings at your synagogue.  There are so many opportunities for you to get a sense of the heart of your early childhood program – while sitting on the bima during the Shofar blowing in the sanctuary or observing Tashlich at a local body of water, at a family Meet & Greet before the first day of school, or in the sukkah during your young children celebrations.  These momentsarel’dor v’dor moments, new beginnings for the entire congregation as one.  Importantly, they are also chances for you to think, “Wow!  I am a part of THIS!”

It is rare that so many generations and stakeholders are at the synagogue at the same time. So, during this exciting and hectic time, take a moment to observe your entire community at a point of new beginnings and begin that dialogue! 

Building Connections with Your Early Childhood Program and Temple Family

For many parents, looking for an Early Childhood Education (ECE) Program may be one of the most important decisions they make. Jewish ECE programs are not just entry points into Jewish learning but also a re-entry point back into a synagogue for the parents.     

As a Director, I have found more and more parents that have not entered a Synagogue since their Bar/Bat Mitzvah or are simply Jew”ish”, having never been exposed to Jewish life or a Jewish community. Therefore, when families visit the ECE program, it is my time to sell not just our program but also the community that exists beyond the walls of our Jewish school setting.

Beginning at birth, children are developing their own sense of identity, including a religious one.  Jewish ECE programs are exposing children as early as infants to Judaism, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, Jewish values, holiday and prayer. In turn, students are bringing home their lessons learned and rituals practiced to their own homes building Jewish experiences together as a family.

In addition to offering a safe, stimulating, high-quality education, it is important that temples are able to connect to those ”in home” Jewish experiences.  Quality programming, meaningful family experiences, and activities for all ages are key to the Temple’s role in a new family’s Jewish journey.  Committees involving ECE staff, clergy, parents and temple leadership must work together to attract new young families through communication, marketing, and outreach. 

Through these committees, our leadership has implemented ways to further connect ECE families with our synagogue life.  Here are just a few!

• Tour beyond your program.  When a new family enters the building to tour the ECE program, make sure to take them to your Sanctuary and introduce them to your clergy.  (Parents love going into the Rabbi’s study!)   Show them your religious school, the public spaces in your Synagogue, and your youth lounge if you have one.  Introduce them to your Religious school Director and/or Youth Director.
• Be inviting! A representative from our membership committee delivers a Shabbat basket, including candles, wine, challah and a teddy bear (along with a Temple bulletin) to the homes of new families. They point out the exciting events coming up and invite them to a Shabbat service as their guest.
• Gift of a Lifetime.  Any new ECE family receives a free year of temple membership.  Each year, we have a New Member Shabbat where our families receive an invitation to a Wine and Cheese, (with child-friendly food) followed by a Family Shabbat program. 
• Be an Ambassador! A parent ambassador should not JUST make an initial welcoming phone call. Rather, throughout the YEAR, ambassadors can call and invite new families to family programs, sit with them, spend time with them and introduce them to other families. Remember, this first year makes a huge difference in whether or not a family will stay connected!  It is not just the initial contact that matters…follow-through is key!
• Parent Sponsored Tot Shabbats.  Just a few years ago, our PTO starting reaching out to families to financially support our Tot Shabbats.  As a Shabbat family sponsor, parents felt a sense of ownership.  They would give input as to theme and programming and invite their friends and families to come.  Their names are on a plague displayed in the Temple building.  With a $118.00 donation and typically between 8 – 10 families, we are able to offer not just a spiritual family evening but a FREE one with dinner, art projects, and a show or activity.  Our Clergy always leads the service and make sure to spend time mingling with families during the programming.  Attendance has dramatically increased as a result of these small changes!
• Clergy and Board presence Any opportunity that arises, make sure Clergy are present!is key… have parents make a connection!
  • At our first day of school, our Clergy and members of the Board can always be found greeting families and mingling at our “Boo Hoo Breakfast” with parents who just can’t seem to break away!  
  • Each week, we have a Royal Class with Kings and Queens singing on the Bimah at our Kabbalat Shabbat.  Parents from the class receive a special invitation to watch their children. After the service is over, they are able “shmooze” with the Clergy and various Board members in our Chapel while enjoying bagels and coffee.
  • Having Clergy stop into to a PTO meeting goes a long way toward building relationships.  All it takes is a 5 minute hello.
  • Children love spending time with clergy on a regular basis in the classrooms. Parents love seeing the child-clergy connection – include photos from their time together in ECE and temple newsletters!
• Involve your students in temple services. We have several services/programs throughout the year where our ECE students are invited to sing with the students from our Religious school program.   Parents who would not otherwise go to a Friday night service are now coming to watch their children. They especially love seeing the clergy call their children by name, evidence of the relationships they have built with children in the ECE classrooms.
• Free religious school tuition.  Prior to Pre-Kindergarten graduation, arrange for ECE students to spend a day with the Kindergarten religious school class. At the ECE graduation, the Religious School Director can introduce her or himself to your families and give a certificate for a free year of religious school.
• Be intentional when planning temple programming.  The goal is to build inclusive relationships with families.  In order to do so, you must know your demographics! Plan something for everyone! Our demographics continue to change both in age and culture.  Programming events geared towards the different populations is vital.  ECE parents are a great resource in knowing your demographic – include them in planning and programming to ensure that you meet their needs and wishes.

Trying to engage Jewish families and connect them to your Temple’s family may seem like a struggle, and it cannot be done by a single individual or group.  But with careful planning and marketing and a team approach, this goal can be easily attainable.  Families today are looking to make their lives easier and are not always prioritizing Jewish life.   Now more than ever, it is important to make these deep and varied connections with our families and make them part of your Jewish community!  Listen to the voices of your parents and get them involved so that their children’s children have a home to go to in the future!  Embrace your ECE families and show them they have a home at your temple that extends beyond their time in your EC program.

By Stacey Katz

September 2018

Lessons for You from Congregations Without an Early Childhood Center

You’re the director of the early childhood center at your congregation. Young children and their parents and caregivers are in and out of your building (and your office!) all day, every day. It’s wonderful to have so many opportunities to create and nurture relationships, and sometimes even a bit overwhelming.

But not every congregation has families with young children coming to their building every day or several times a week. Some don’t even have a building at all. Congregations without early childhood centers still need to build relationships with the families in their community but they have to approach it in a slightly different way than you might. As part of my position at the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), I provide resources on engagement of families with young children to a wide range of congregations, many of them without an early childhood center. These include small congregations, remote congregations, and those with a limited number of members who have young children. Through my work with these congregations, I identified some valuable principles that can also apply to yours.

• Work as a team. Engaging families with young children should be a congregation-wide priority, not the responsibility of one person or program. Anyone who may be a point of contact for a family is a part of the team. Frequently one person takes the lead, but they know that it is everyone’s responsibility to build the relationships with parents and their young children that will lead to a thriving community.
• Get out of the building. Many parents of young children are not comfortable in synagogues for a variety of reasons and may be more likely to attend a public space event. It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Go out and explore - figure out where parents naturally gather in your community and host an event there.  It could be a park, coffee shop, book store, or playground. Parents need to feel comfortable and welcomed in order to engage.
• Invest in your online presence. Your website and social media are your new front door. All online family-facing media should be (1) up-to-date with accurate dates and times for any upcoming events, (2) visually interesting including pictures where families can see people like themselves, (3) easy to navigate, and (4) focused on connecting people online, not just functioning as a digital bulletin board. It helps if you cultivate some friendly parents who will like, comment, and share your posts. Your congregation’s welcome starts way before someone comes to your building.
• Think outside the box. Experiment! Try something new, and don’t be afraid to fail. Do your clergy attend or officiate at berit milah (ritual circumcisions) or baby namings? Leverage this opportunity to invite parents to engage with you, whether you present them with a 'welcome certificate,' tag them in a social media 'welcome post,' or make a friendly phone call to them.  Ask the local pediatricians or coffee shops to post your promotional materials. Help the parents you already know to engage their friends and neighbors in congregational events and programs. In the end, it is the relationships you create and nurture that will be your true measure of success.

Learn more about principles of family engagement in The Tent, the URJ’s online communications and collaboration platform, by joining the conversation in the Families with Young Children group, and by reading our Engagement Best Principles Guide.

By Jennie Nerenberg
September 2018

A small grant opportunity was made available in my local area from One Happy Camper, a partnership between the Foundation for Jewish Camp and communities across North America whose goal is to introduce families to Jewish sleepaway camps.

The first step was to identify my supporters who turned out to be the four clergy, the religious school director, preschool teachers, and the preschool board. A subcommittee was formed, brainstorming meetings happened, and one idea took hold; we chose to recreate my favorite sleepaway camp experience—making Shabbat in an outdoor amphitheater.

The next step was to gain approval from temple’s executive board, most of whom had never had children in the preschool. How was I to ‘sell’ them on the idea that it would benefit all if we, as a temple community, invested time, energy, and valuable property for a group of children whose parents had not yet committed to being temple members?

As is the case with most executive boards, our volunteers rotate every few years. As a constant in the building for 25 plus years, it often falls on me to identify and educate the stakeholders on the history, benefits, and drawbacks of creatively using common spaces. After a formal presentation and an opportunity to ask questions, the board gave its approval to move forward with the plan.

We now have a beautiful campsite on an otherwise unused piece of property. It has an ‘amood’ and a fire pit. It is rustic. It is outdoors. It is surrounded by trees and grass. It feels exactly like my sleepover camp amphitheater. The preschool community meets there for Bima Time each Friday, and they use it as a place for nature exploration all week. It is perfect, in my eyes. What about the eyes of the board and other temple stakeholders, you might ask?

While the idea was brought to the executive board by the preschool, the entire temple now benefits from this simple, multipurpose space. The campground has become popular across the ages and stages of our congregants, including one past preschooler who chose to make the space wheelchair accessible as his Eagle Scout project. The religious school uses it for Maccabi games. Young families pitch tents and cook dinner together for a Shabbat evening ‘sleepunder’, complete with s’mores and campfire songs. The teens used the space when scholar in residence song leader, Dan Nichols, led services.

That one small grant and that one small idea have brought joy to many.

Carol Paster
Preschool Director
Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, South Orange, NJ

January 2019

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.”

A Personal Story of Early Childhood and Synagogue Collaboration

Yad B Yad Children’s Center and The Syndi Scheck Preschool (YBY) at Temple Emanuel was, and still is, a big dream. 

Dreamers can’t just dream, though.  Dreamers actually need to have know-how and confidence, and we actually do need a plan. Part of any successful plan is understanding the “what” and examining the “why” before the “how” is even considered.

The most simplified motivation for starting our journey at YBY was the financial need.  But when we looked deeper, there were far more important reasons for our community.  We like to say that it was beshert – the right Board and the right interim director, all with the right expertise, came together at the right time and with the right strategic plan to allow the growing Temple Emanuel community to keep the preschool in its building. 

The greater Phoenix area has the largest growing population of Jews, yet we have one of the least affiliated populations in the country.  Our Jewish people are wandering in this desert and are not finding their “larger Jewish homes” in congregations and synagogues.  And if they are, they may be considering synagogue membership a worthy investment during the bar and bat mitzvah prep years, but we are somehow missing the conversion to a long-term commitment to membership and building a sense of investing in the greater good.

So where am I going with all this? Sometimes dreams intersect. 

• I dream of an amazing school community with amazing teachers, children and families, where teachers are respected, and parents are involved partners.
• Our Board dreams of a congregational community which sustains this vibrancy and engagement throughout a family’s lifecycle and into the future. 
• I dream of children so engaged with “the Jewish” within their hearts and souls that it is their way of seeing and being in the world, living lives more meaningful, purposeful and vibrant because of Judaism.
• The Board dreams of sustaining our Temple finances where congregants believe that being a part of something bigger than ourselves is worthy of investment, where we sow the seeds of a future we may never see.

So, a group of us at Temple Emanuel put our dreams -and a little bit of “know how” - together, and initiated a plan to increase enrollment and revenue, attract professional teachers, build a community of caring, and integrate young families and Yad B Yad community into the greater life of the congregation.

I took a financial risk, and temple members, Board members and clergy made a significant investment of time by participating in a Community of Practice that met twice twice monthly with URJ professionals for the past 18 months. 

Where are we now?  Our shared dreams are coming true.

We are revenue positive for the Temple, and enrollment has more than doubled.

We support varying financial needs with balanced perspective on program needs.

We have 21 full time permanent staff members receiving competitive compensation packages- including paid time off, vacation and sick time.

We have made gigantic strides towards integrating our young families into the greater synagogue community.  We co-hosted the first ever meet and greet between religious school teachers and YBY teachers, putting names, faces and goodwill all together to kick off our new year. 

Our learning and growing is visible in many ways throughout the Temple Building and on social media.  And we make clergy participation visible weekly through live feed so parents can be part of our Shabbat even when they are at work.

Parents have created their own Community of Caring, including a Meal Train to support each other, a Moms’ group and a babysitting co-op. We are an oasis for energetic children as well as respite for tired caregivers.

We are a professional child development center, not day care.  We take care of children, not days.  We are daily life for East Valley Jewish families.  We are community. 

We do not take lightly our role as the first connection for a lifetime of Judaism ahead.  If we’ve done our job right, our families stay and belong to the greater community in a seamless transition.  At this time, we have increased Jewish affiliation to 75% of our families.

Some people tell me I make it look easy.  Not one piece of this has been easy. 

Yet this is what being Jewish is about… nothing has come easy for our people… what better way to engage our community than through continued collaboration and unique and shared expertise to move forward on a journey toward success.

Tanya Swezey Stabinsky
Yad B Yad Children’s Center and The Syndi Scheck Preschool
Tempe, AZ

April 2019