The original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” a popular crime drama television series, was set in Las Vegas. Then two spin-offs, “CSI: Miami” and “CSI: NY,” followed. But “CSI: Milwaukee?” Who knew?
Actually, CSI in this case stands for Congregation School Initiative, not crime scene investigation.
But CSI: Milwaukee is what some synagogue educators and other professionals are calling the Coalition for Jewish Learning’s new program to nurture excellence in synagogue schools, said Rabbi Steve Adams, spiritual leader of Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha, one of the congregations participating in the initiative.
CSI, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Coalition for Jewish Learning “grew out our concern that, at the time, all of the attention of the Jewish world was on day schools and camping and we felt that the education of the more than 900 children enrolled in synagogue schools [in the Milwaukee area] was important too,” said CJL executive director Steven Baruch in a telephone interview with The Chronicle last week.
Baruch said volunteer leader Louise Stein sparked the initiative with a challenge she issued to the community. In an acceptance speech she made upon receiving the Esther Cohen Award from the Women’s Division in 2003, she said we must support synagogue schools.
Baruch noted that despite their short hours, tired students, and competition from extracurricular and family activities, “the [after-school synagogue] schools that we are working with are fine schools. They are doing an outstanding job in the face of many challenges,” said Baruch. “And we are lucky to have a fine group of professionals working as educational directors.”
But those directors are terribly busy people — “either they are part-time or they have become life-long learning directors, so not only are they in charge of the schools, they also run adult and family education and holiday programs,” Baruch said.
In an effort to nurture and support those education directors and their schools, CJL began working with the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA) to research and adapt the best program they found nationally.
That program, Nurturing Excellence in Synagogue Schools (NESS) developed and implemented in Philadelphia, became the primary model for CSI.
And with funding from the Jewish Community Foundation, the Helen Bader Foundation and Partnership for Effective Learning and Innovative Education, CJL built the local program.
A three-year initiative, CSI was formally launched this school year, with six participating Conservative and Reform congregations. Milwaukee educator Eve Joan Zucker is program coordinator.
Congregational schools that have chosen to participate can receive resources that they would not be able to access individually.
Some of those include:
• A leadership team, composed of the synagogue education director and some combination of the rabbi, the assistant rabbi, the cantor, the head of the education committee and the synagogue president.
• An action team composed of other synagogue members that works with the leadership team to ensure that the school is well-integrated with the synagogue as a whole.
• A vision of excellence and an implementation plan for that vision, created by the leadership and action teams working together.
• Trained assessors who can give synagogue schools a snapshot of a range of important aspects of the school (parents, teachers, education directors, curriculum, instruction, leadership, physical plant) which they can compare to their goal.
• A community advisory committee, chaired by Eve Eiseman and community leaders from MJF and synagogue presidents who take a global look at synagogues and offer suggestions.
• An evaluator from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who will appraise the entire program.
• The services of a facilitator who is expert in strategic planning and group dynamics.
Adams, of Cong. Emanu-El of Waukesha, was especially pleased with the services of the professional facilitator who “guided us through the process of identifying visions, mission and goals for our educational program,” he said.
“When pushed to explain why we are doing [some of our favorite activities], we don’t know. This program focuses us on real identifiable goals.”
CSI has helped the congregation’s school “identify five goal areas where we want to be stronger,” Adams said.
Congregation Beth Israel’s Education Director, Samara Sofian, said that CSI has provided opportunities for professional development for teachers and synagogue educators that they might not otherwise receive.
“The program has made a nice effort to make it workable for the teachers,” by offering them a stipend for professional development classes.
Sofian also appreciates how CSI brings synagogue educators together to work as a community, she said.
Rabbi-Educator Roxanne Shapiro, of Congregation Shalom, said that in their large congregation, usually the professional staff puts programs together and the congregation works on them.
“But this model is different. It involves congregants from an earlier time and uses their individual experience and skills.” In this way the initiative not only affects the children’s education, it also affects the congregation as a whole, Shapiro noted.
The work being done by these educators and their congregations is difficult, said Zucker.“Part of the planning has to be based on the synagogues’ [individual] goals. The idea of the extended team is to involve a wide range of synagogue stakeholders. They want to make sure that the students coming out of the school reflect what the synagogue is.”
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