Photos from RAVSAK Conference
January, 2007

PARDeS: The Reform Day School Movement Report to the URJ Board
December, 2006

Day schools within the Reform Jewish movement were developed over the past 35 years. There are currently twenty Reform day schools sponsored by individual Reform synagogues or a consortium of Reform synagogues throughout the United States and Canada, serving 6000 students! Students receive an excellent academic education, while developing Judaic and Hebrew knowledge, a commitment to tikkun olam and a love for the State of Israel.

The majority of the schools are members of the Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools whose acronym is PARDeS. Unlike other URJ affiliates, PARDeS welcomes as members schools, school professionals as well as lay leaders. PARDeS offers information, mutual and professional support, and education through its annual conferences and frequent Israel trips for teachers. PARDeS works closely with the URJ Day School Specialist.

The Reform Day School Movement is the youngest and smallest day school movement in North America. An unknown number of children from Reform congregations - probably exceeding the number at our Movement schools - attend community-sponsored or Conservative (Solomon Shechter) day schools, particularly where there is no local Reform day school available to them.

The probable number of Reform students in day schools approximates or exceeds the number of youngsters attending URJ summer camps each year. All studies show that day school students have a much higher chance of becoming committed Jewish adults than even those in our camping, youth group, or Israel programs. According to HUC, about one-half or our rabbinical students attended day schools.

PARDeS has reached out to the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) and RAVSAK, the coordinating body for over one hundred non-movement-affiliated day schools to accomplish its mission: strengthening our existing schools and supporting the establishment of new Reform Day Schools.

The Leadership Council of the Reform Movement has agreed to explore the potential for increasing the number of children of Reform families enrolled in day schools and to increase the number and quality of Reform day schools. The Council has brought together all the relevant arms of the Movement, including URJ, HUC-JIR, the CCAR and PARDeS. Together, the group has applied for support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation of Oklahoma to provide funds for a comprehensive Strategic Plan for Reform Day School education within the Reform Movement.

We look forward to sharing with the URJ Board the recommendations of the study when it is completed, sometime in the next year.

Respectfully Submitted by

Allan T. Hirsh, III, Chair and Nancy Pryzant Picus, President