Separate middle school departments created

Separate middle school departments

created English and Social Studies Department Chair Deborah Feigenson leads a staff meeting.

Jared Schreiber Reporter

Significant changes to the CESJDS departmental leadership structure are set to be implemented during the 2021-2022 school year with the creation of middle school department heads that are separate from the high school.

According to the Dean of Academics Aileen Goldstein, the decision to have separate department chairs for the middle school and high school is a concept that has been on the back burner for a while. Beginning with the creation of separate principals and administrations along with policies and philosophies unique to each division, “it became more difficult to manage in the existing leadership structure,” Goldstein said.

However, events of the past school year catalyzed that change. “Everything during COVID was highlighted, and during COVID, every single program and policy was different by division; it had to be,” Goldstein said. “We weren’t in the building in the same days. … And suddenly it became clear that the leadership structure was not working. Teachers were still being supervised, getting good feedback and the curriculum was still changing and developing, but it was not doing justice to the program.”

High school Math Department Chair Reuben Silberman agrees with Goldstein. Silberman held a significant amount of responsibility overseeing both divisions, and he felt that he did not have the ability to adequately help support or propose pedagogical innovations. “There are a lot of responsibilities associated with department chairs, so I haven’t always had time to really push [the department] to make changes or grow. Most of it tends to be administrative stuff and supervising,” Silberman said. “… I think splitting it up will allow us to focus more and actually make some productive changes.”

JDS prides itself on providing students with a unified experience from Gurim through senior year. As such, Silberman anticipates an increase in the coordination among department heads in order to allow for shift inter-division transitions in relation to content and skills. “I think the biggest issue will be that we will not necessarily be in the same meetings as often so when we’re discussing departmental priorities or curriculum changes it will just be a little harder to schedule those conversations so that everyone is there,” Silberman said. Unlike the high school, the administration decided to establish department chairs over two groups of secular disciplines: STEM and humanities in order to better reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the middle school. Upper School STEM Coordinator Cassandra Batson will chair the Middle School Math and Science departments, and Deborah Feigenson who has taught both English and history will chair the Middle School English and Social Studies departments.

However, Batson does not necessarily believe that the same structure is needed in high school. “In middle school, the reason why it is beneficial to have someone like me, … is [because] middle school students are not able to make

4

shared middle school and high school departments

the average high school department has 3.83

members

the average middle school department has 4.1

members

2

new nonacademic middle school departments

the same connections as high school students are,” Batson said. “... By the time you’re in high school, your classes are also more rigorous and they go at a faster pace and you’re able to dive deeper in those real world scenarios.” In addition to the establishment of academic department chairs in the middle school, there are also two newly added non-academic department heads. Rachel Meytin will be the Middle School Experiential and Service Learning Chair and Dr. Jennifer Newfeld will be the Middle School Jewish Life Chair. Given the dispersion of non-academic events and classes that exist in the middle school, these new positions will help to unify and organize them. Meytin said she will be keeping track of what the student body is doing at various points of the day, from morning check-in through the afternoon flex block. “I am hoping that I can make these discrete spaces have some unity,” Meytin said.