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The Ruth and Lewis Davis Religious School

Boca Raton Hebrew School

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Under the leadership of Zachary Goldstein, the Ruth and Lewis Davis Religious School provides a unique Jewish educational experience in a professional, caring, fun, and community-focused atmosphere. Our small learning environment enables us to offer differentiated instruction and the flexibility to meet your children where they are in their Jewish journey. Our goal is to prepare our students to lead Jewish lives as mensches.

תלמוד גדול, שהתלמוד מביא לידי מעשה

Study is greater because it leads to action

(Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 40b)

Learning at Shaarei Kodesh is personalized, inspiring and empowering. We use the latest educational tools, technologies and scholarship to make our opportunities for learning rich in meaning and deeply relevant to each of our learners.

PERSONALIZED

At Shaarei Kodesh, learning is crafted with an appreciation for each child's unique approach, pace, and style of learning and developmentally appropriate goals are set that both support and challenge the learner. Each child has a Personalized Learning Plan that tailors our school’s curriculum to the child’s needs and strengths.

INSPIRING

Joy, spiritual development, skill mastery, Habits of Mind and content exploration are all a part of the inspiring learning environment created at Shaarei Kodesh. Learning at Shaarei Kodesh is fully integrated and emphasizes big ideas, essential questions and the application of our learning to our lives. At Shaarei Kodesh, learners are inspired to ask questions, seek answers and solve problems as they are immersed in Limudei Kodesh (Judaic Studies) and Ivrit (Hebrew.)

EMPOWERING

Learners at Shaarei Kodesh are empowered to own their learning. They are supported and guided in their learning by Madrichim (Learning Guides). More than teachers, Madrichim help students find the resources they need to reach their goals and master their learning.

Kehillot - Learning Communities

Our program is structured around learning communities that allow students to learn from one another, see where their learning is going, serve as mentors and role models, and allow teachers to collaborate with one another.

A multi-age classroom is not the same as a multi-grade classroom where students are still taught as separate grade levels even though they are in the same room. Multi-age classrooms use flexible grouping and differentiate instruction according to each child’s needs without distinguishing students by grade level.

Enduring Understandings

Each student at Shaarei Kodesh has a Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) built upon a set of Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings.

Big Ideas are categories of Jewish learning that help us learn in an integrated way. Enduring understandings are statements summarizing important ideas and core processes that are central to Jewish learning and have lasting value beyond the classroom. They synthesize what students should understand—not just know or do—as a result of studying a particular content area.

Our Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings:

	B’tzelem Elokim (In God’s Image): All people are created in the image of God. This awareness allows us to see all people as having infinite value and challenges us to do our part in tikkun olam - repairing the world.
	Avodah (Service of God): God is the goal and everyday, we are challenged to find ways to serve and connect with the Divine through prayer, mitzvot, celebration and Jewish living.
	Talmud Torah (Torah Study): Torah is the ongoing, living story of the Jewish people. Through the study of Torah, we become active recipients of this tradition and learn how to walk in God's ways.
	K’lal Yisrael (The People of Israel): As a people, Jews are sustained by a common history, culture, language and tradition. Our task is to find our place amongst the Jewish people and feel at home.
	Medinat Yisrael (The Land of Israel): The land of Israel is the Jewish homeland. We pray and advocate for her while holding her accountable to reach her greatest potential as a Jewish democracy.

PaRDeS: An Orchard of Learning

In traditional Jewish learning sacred texts can be examined on many different levels, each deepening our understanding and appreciate of the text. These levels are known by the acronym PaRDeS, which means "orchard."

Our learning is structured like the PaRDeS: We begin with simple understandings, learn to see hints of deeper meanings, immerse ourselves in Jewish wisdom and interpretation and then come to discover the sacred secrets that our learning holds for us.

Because we know that every child learns differently and at different paces, our program allows students to move through the PaRDeS as they are able, some faster and others more methodically.

In our radically connected world, content is readily accessible and so our focus is on helping students build a skill set that will allow them to access and interpret information, feel confident with Jewish ritual and tradition, and find their own voice in the eternal conversation between God and the Jewish people through Torah and sacred text.

Tracking Progress - Reaching Goals

Learning at Shaarei Kodesh is goal oriented and mastery-based. We work with our students and families to set challenging learning targets and then assess students on an ongoing basis through both formative (informal and ongoing) and summative assessments to help students reach their learning goals and show mastery.

Celebrating Success

At Shaarei Kodesh, a student’s success is determined by how they progress in reaching their learning goals. This progress is celebrated through a badge system (tagim). As students complete units of study they will earn a tag (badge) marking their accomplishment. Each year on Shavuot we will give out these tagim and celebrate all the students have accomplished.