Membership

Building Connections with Your Early Childhood Program and Temple Family During COVID

Trying to engage our families and congregants during Covid and connect them to your Temple’s family may seem like a struggle. Now more than ever these connections are vital. With careful planning and a team approach, this goal can be easily attainable. 

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 many families.

With Covid, we have been faced with many new challenges.

• How do we sell our programs to new families who have never seen the inside of our walls?
• How do we engage our existing families in our EC programs?
• How do we share these Jewish experiences with our families?
• How do we connect our clergy and leadership to our families?

Whether in person or in many cases now “virtually”, quality programming, meaningful family experiences, and activities for all ages are key to the Temple’s role in a family’s Jewish journey. 

In addition to committees involving ECE staff, clergy, parents and temple leadership, it is important to have a Covid task force committee consisting of medical personnel to safely implement any new programming 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.  Like many programs, our doors are closed to visitors. Tours can be scheduled virtually or even pre-recorded.  Regardless of how they are done, make sure to show them your Sanctuary and introduce your clergy.  (Parents love seeing 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!  This year for Rosh Hashanah, our Membership committee was present at our carpool giving out gift baskets along with Siddurs for those watching services virtually.
• Gift of a Lifetime.  Any new ECE family receives a free year of temple membership. 
• Be an Ambassador! An ambassador should not JUST make an initial welcoming phone call. Rather, throughout the YEAR, ambassadors can call and invite new families to family programs whether in person or virtual. Remember, this first year makes a huge difference in whether or not a family will stay connected! 
• Virtual PTO Meetings. Keep your parents connected! Our first PTO meeting consisted of a virtual tour of the school in session. With an Ipad, one can visit every classroom making sure to point out each child of those in the meeting.
• Clergy and Board presence. Any opportunity that arises, making sure Clergy is present is key… have parents make a connection!
  • Have Clergy join a PTO meeting. This goes a long way toward building relationships. 
  • Have clergy present at the carpool line at least once a week. A quick hello is always appreciated.
  • 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!
• Virtual Programming
  • Include your families in any classroom celebrations. Some of our families send birthday party invitations to extended family along with parents in the classroom.  Zoom has become our parent’s best friend.
  • Shabbat Mystery Reader with Zayde and Bubbee. Each Friday a grandparent signs up to be a mystery reader in their grandchild’s classroom. We have had grandparents from all over the world join us on Zoom.

Stacey Katz
Director
Temple Kol Ami Emanu-El
Plantation,  Florida

October 2021

The Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) examined the possibility that Jewish early care and education is a lever for increased Jewish engagement among Jewish families. 

From this work came an infographic (link below) that presents a multi-faceted, evidence-based definition of Jewish engagement for families with young children.

The infographic can serve as a tool to inform decision-making and spark discussion among program directors, practitioners, lay leaders, families and other stakeholders regarding multiple pathways available to engage Jewish families raising young children.

CASJE Early Childhood Study was funded by Crown Family Philanthropies and led by a research team at Child Trends together with researchers from Brandeis University,

Jewish Engagement Infographic

Arielle Levites
Managing Director
CASJE; ex-officio

Professional Development Resources for ECE Staff

Congregations often reach out to ECE-RJ about the different professional development services we provide members.    

All of our professional development offerings are designed to prepare individuals to work with young children and their families. They improve the knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions of early childhood professionals. Having a strong ECE staff not only makes for a better ECE program, but also helps congregations attract new members.  

Our professional development services vary in order to meet the diverse needs of our members. They include:

Monthly webinars (Meet Ups) – We hold monthly conference calls hosted by ECE-RJ members. Each call’s focus is a designated topic of interest to our members.  

Database of searchable information – ECE-RJ provides a growing searchable database of articles on a variety of topics including classroom management, curriculum ideas, and how to work with parents and families.  

Chatrooms/Forums- We have chatrooms where members can ask and answer each other’s questions in almost real-time.

Monthly newsletter- UNITE, our monthly newsletter, provides articles the support our members as educators and leaders.  

Kallot/National Conference – Each year, ECE-RJ holds an annual get-together in a different city. These events are designed to help participants develop and grow, both personally and professionally. For example, in 2020,  ECE-RJ is (was if you are reading this after the event) holding a Kallah, titled The Art of Intentionality. Participants will/did learn to create environments that encourage intentional learning and develop reflective practice. 

Tricia Ginis
Executive Director
ECE-RJ  

Why Early Childhood Education: “In the Beginning Is Relation”

There’s more to early childhood education than meets the eye.

I used to think of preschool as the place where little kids learn the basics – a few letters and numbers, when to sit still and be quiet, and how to color within the lines and use things like school paste. But there is more to it than just that.

When Martin Buber, in his modern Jewish spirituality classic, I and Thou, wrote “In the beginning is relation,” he must have had our young ones in mind. For it is through our synagogue early childhood education programs that children and their families start relationships that can last a lifetime.

To be sure, our synagogues look at our preschools as a potential source of new members and religious school students. After all, our preschools are a place where kids make their first friendships and parents arrange their children’s first play dates. Parents themselves meet and connect over common interests, needs, and solution-seeking.

When I meet and talk with synagogue teens, many will tell me of enduring relationships that span the years from preschool to high school and then onto the college campus. Their parents talk of decades-long relationships with other parents, relationships that began at the synagogue when their kids were small. Martin Buber was right when he wrote, “In the beginning IS relationship” for many lifelong relationships begin in a synagogue preschool program, relationships that endure and carry on for years, if not decades, to bless our students, families and congregations through all the arms of synagogue, including religious school, Confirmation, youth group, adult activities and more. 

So, our kids learn facts in preschool. They develop social skills and learn about their world. What’s more, the preschool experience opens a path to lifelong relationships that contribute strength to our communities. 

Rabbi Dennis Ross
Temple Sinai
Summit, NJ

September 2019