The 25^th Board of Trustees of the Ronald C Wornick Jewish Day School started its work this week. This Board is developing the strategic plan for the next 3-5-10 years of Wornick. This plan will be driven by Wornick’s purpose – our purpose for our students, our families, the North Peninsula Jewish Community and national Jewry. It will include the educational priorities for the school as well as our goals and tactics to grow enrollment and ensure adequate fundraising for our campus obligations and scholarships. We look forward to the participation and support of our entire Wornick community.

At our annual meeting this Tuesday, outgoing Trustees shared their wisdom and hopes with incoming Trustees as we reviewed the plans and progress for CulturalWorks and the financial obligations we have towards the campus for our fantastic facilities. 

Most moving were the expressions of pride from Trustees about the unique gift of a Wornick education. We are proud of

• how our students learn – they learn to think, to question, to present and to appreciate diverse points of view. 
• how our students lead – they serve the local community, the Jewish community, Israel while support each other within and between grades.
• our alumni – their accomplishments, their menschheit, and their Jewish identities.

It was amazing to hear what the 8^th grade graduates expected to remember about Wornick. In addition to a robust secular curriculum, because we have a longer school day and only one half day a month (in contrast to the public schools), our students receive a dual curriculum in Hebrew and Jewish Studies that enhances and expands their secular learning – an experience they treasure. I wish I could have gone to Wornick.

At 8^th Grade graduation, a proud parent told me that a school is as good as the parents want it to be. I believe a school is as good as the community wants it to be.  Wornick is already great – together with Dr. Gereboff, we will make it extraordinary.

We could not have reached this point without the tireless support of our outgoing Trustees – Andy Fradkin, Don Newman, Kathy Williams, Alisa Spivak, Mark Abelson, Marty Izenson and Ilan Jude. Your service was so valuable and our new Board is honored to follow you.

Have an amazing summer – and look for news and happenings from Wornick. 

Joelle Kaufman, President, Wornick Board of Trustees

May is an interesting time for the Wornick Board of Trustees.  There is a group of Trustees who are completing their service, a group who are staying on the Board and a group who will join at the next meeting - the Annual Meeting on June 8. It's a reflective time - key decisions regarding the budget, staff and objectives are now being assessed in light of results. And we set the stage for the upcoming year.

In addition to talking about enrollment and community ambassadorship, we discussed two issues that impact the school's future - the Cultural Arts Center (CAC) and our relationship with community synagogues.

The campus that we share has a commitment to Foster City to create a theater. Additionally, our school building's capacity is 280 students and we've been within 20 students of that maximum in recent history. As Trustees, we want to ensure we have the appropriate space to serve our community and provide a Jewish education for all families in our community who commit to it. We are also cognizant of our community's ability to finance additional space and the Trustees discussed the possibilities and ramifications of going forward with the CAC incorporating classrooms versus other designs that do not and potentially limit our expansion capabilities.  We benefited from the experience of the departing Trustees - and recognized that we have more to learn and discuss with our campus partners.

Our relationship with community synagogues is crucial to our mission and our success. As Trustees, we discussed the enrollment of our school from every synagogue and the subsequent synagogue membership choices from our families. We recognize certain imbalances and together with Dr. Gereboff, Trustees and members of the community, believe we can sustain and improve good relationships with focused effort.

I hope you will join our Annual Meeting on June 8 at 7pm.  We will thank our outgoing Trustees, install our incoming Trustees and continue the discussion about the future of our community and the possibilities we can realize here.

A hearty congratulations to our 7th grade class on the successful completion of their Tzedakah Project. This program encapsulates the vision of a Wornick education - showing the impact of a community of engaged, enthusiastic lifelong learners.  In addition to raising $25,700 for Tzedakah, you all demonstrated impassioned hearts, cultivated minds a nourished souls, and empowered bodies.

Every one of the 24 agencies who received tzedakah from you remarked on your poise, insight and commitment to Tikkun Olam.  They also universally were in awe that 7th graders could execute a year long project that impacts the lives of people around the world.

I am proud to be a parent and a Trustee of a school that brings out such excellence from its students.

Kol ha'Kavod!

Join the Board for the 2009-2010 Annual Meeting

7pm Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The April Board meeting was focused on evaluating our enrollment for 2010-2011, our progress in the annual campaign and a number of key topics Trustees wanted to discuss:

• the role of teachers and the Board, 
• how to celebrate our school's 25th year and 
• how to engage Wornick alumni. 

Enrollment is strong for 2010-2011 but there are still many contracts committed and not submitted.  Enrollment drives our budget, teacher contracts and program development for the upcoming year - please bring your contracts in this week.

Our annual campaign is gaining momentum in the spring as we have crossed the 70% family participation threshold. This is great improvement and we know our community can reach 100% family participation for the FIRST TIME in our history. Please make your pledge or donate today.

The Board and the Acting Head of School are committed to supporting our teachers.  The Board's role is strategic planning, governance and development. Our PTO co-President shared the renewed focus of the PTO to work with the teachers to have a teacher at every PTO meeting. We also want to explore having a teacher share a Mission Moment with us at many Board meetings as well as the pro/cons of creating a Wornick School Site Council. 

We are so excited that next year marks the 25th year of Wornick Jewish education in the North Peninsula.  In partnership with Dr. Gereboff and the professional team, the Board and hopefully our entire parent body will create and participate in a year's worth of celebrations.  If anyone has a creative idea for a 25th Anniversary logo - we'd love to see it.

In keeping with marking 25 years of Wornick, we want to connect with all the Wornick alumni - from the North Peninsula Jewish Day School through to the graduating class of 2010. If you know a Wornick alumni, please invite them to contact the school and participate in some of our 25th year celebration.

I hope to see you at the many wonderful school events that we have in the remaining six weeks of the 2009-2010 school year.

The Trustees were very privledged to have two communities of guests at our March Board meeting.  Three representatives of our eighth grade class, Sophia Aron, Daniel Finnie, and Madeleine Steckley, present their experience from the class trip to Israel. 

Many of our lower school families do not know the impact this trip has on our students, families and school. Our students travel without their parents as representatives of Wornick, the Bay  Area and the USA. Not only do they visit religious and cultural sites, but they do community service/tikkun olam in Israel and they spend time in the homes of their Reali hosts.  The three ambassadors to the Board conveyed how this visit deepened their connection to Israel, strengthened their Jewish identity and taught them about diversity, economics, science and more. We should be proud that our school pioneered this program and that our community enabled every 8th grade student to take the trip.

The impact of the trip continues to spread throughout our school as our 8th graders created and conducted a memorial on Yom Hazikaron for fallen Israelis that they learned about on their trip.  We've created the virtual version of it for you all to experience.  I hope you are as moved as I am.

Our second community of guests were school and area experts in the arena of special education and alternative/gifted learning. We learned from Susan Weintrob, Barbara Gereboff, Robyn Simke and Flora Kupferman about best practices in alternative and gifted learning enrichment and how those practices are implemented at Wornick and area Jewish Day Schools. The Trustees engaged in lively discussion about inclusion and diversity at Wornick.  Our administrators will be presenting the 2010-2011 plan for alternative and gifted education at the April 27, 2010 Board meeting.