Strengths of our Student Activities and Community Service Programs: • The Middle School elective program has significantly expanded its offerings, with an academic and STEM focus within the majority of electives. • The Student Congress has made community service a central part of its deliberations and operations, making it a respected facet of our school’s experience supporting our School Mission. • All students have opportunities to shine and present in front of large audiences - whether these are traditional grade- level Judaic programs (“Chagigot”), weekly Shabbat programs, curricular exhibitions, and/or academic competitions. • The positive tone and spirited collaboration among the Levine Faculty has grown in recent years as student activities have expanded, often reflecting the teachers’ special talents and interests, giving students a broader array of activities and electives to pursue. • The 8 th Grade Israel Mission experience, offered in the spring of each year for 8 th graders, has pivoted in terms of its focus - now the aim of the Mission is to seek service opportunities, offer service learning experiences, and to organize collaborations with youth in Israel who are also pursuing these service goals or who are themselves beneficiaries of philanthropic support. • The school’s philanthropic support a nd campaigns in recent years have significantly improved the facilities and the technology to support student activities - new basketball court; renovation of the outdoor grounds; vast improvements to the play areas; and the construction of new student gardens, including a brand new greenhouse to support our science and STEM programs, plus a new Makerspace. Challenges for Student Activities and Community Service Programs: • Transportation to other locations - for community service, for athletic activities, and for collaborations with other schools - continues to be a challenge and continues to be costly. The school owns only one 14-passenger van. • The school’s administrative team, in its marketing efforts, needs to improve its promotion of these various activities and electives. Often the traditional Jewish ceremonies or annual holiday activities get the press, while the many new and intriguing activities, the fascinating electives, and the interesting community service projects are not promoted or shared with the parent body, which may support a suspicious attitude among some parents that these electives and service experiences are a waste of time. • For Middle School students, “hands - on” service opportunities are difficult to find and arrange. The result of this is that students may see fundraising as the chief means of support as opposed to having real interpersonal experiences where students connect with the elderly, with disadvantaged youth, or with orphaned animals. Finding different ways for our students to experience or witness other socio-economic realities remains a challenge.
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