The Jewish After School Accelerator

A one-year cohort experience designed to help you start a Jewish After School program at your organization

Accelerator Details

Goal: To equip existing organizations with sustainable skills, training, and resources to create or enhance/enrich after school programs with quality Jewish education and experiences, engaging more Jewish children and families in Jewish community and culture.

Representatives from existing organizations.
- Education and Program Directors: Learn how to lead through change, and bring your community and staff along with you. We help you develop a comprehensive plan and take you step by step, transitioning your current after school program into an immersive, experiential learning environment that meets the needs of a diverse student body and provides deep Jewish education and connection.
- Teachers/Staff: Learn how to create a positive, active and immersive learning environment that delivers high quality Jewish education for your students. We will learn pedagogical approaches that work in the Jewish after school environment, and how to facilitate the dynamic experiential student curriculum exclusively available to participants. At the end of this accelerator, teachers and staff will have the skills to facilitate deep and meaningful learning with confidence, joy, and ease.
Program Directors:
1. Elements and impact of immersive Jewish education
2. How to lead and manage in times of change: understanding the impact of programmatic change and learn the tools to ease pain points in the process for different stakeholders in your organization (parents, colleagues, teachers, and children)
3. Project planning (planning for change/transition) through SMART Goals
4. How to train staff (training program/manual and first year of staff training included)
5. Who to hire and how to retain them (recruitment and retention of teachers and staff)
6. How to attract families and increase enrollment (recruitment and retention of families)
7. Building relationships with schools and local communities
8. Transportation, operations and logistics of after school
9. Communicating with families and with the broader community
10. Aligning your after school with organizational programming
11. Social emotional well being in the workplace
12. Creating a cohesive and positive workplace culture
Teachers/Staff:
1. The unique after school classroom - unfold new opportunities for learning and learn strategies for success
2. Child Development in Jewish after school- Age appropriate behaviors, positive behavior support and redirection
3. Social Emotional well being - students and teachers
4. Experiential Education in Jewish after school
5. Inclusion and accessibility in Jewish after school
6. Creating community learning environments
7. Facilitating the student curriculum
8. Core Curriculum through Student Values
9. Hebrew Language and Learning
10. Ritual and Judaica
11. Jewish Merit Badge System
12. Program materials - that enable success
13. Scheduling, flexibility, and responding to student needs
14. Facilitating independent/small group learning
With each of the topics listed above, our cohort workshops and 1:1 coaching sessions are designed around a proven learning process.
Participants will…
1. Learn about the topic and tools from experts in the field
2. Learn how to use the topic and tools in their work
3. Try out the strategies/techniques learned in their own environment
4. Share learnings/best practices with their cohort colleagues and adjust accordingly
5. Teach the topic to others in their own workplace
Education and Program Directors will grow through professional development in adaptive leadership and change management, learning the lenses and skills that can help leaders navigate through transition and think broadly about the audiences that will be affected.
Teachers and Staff will grow as they expand their toolbelt for working in Jewish After School with strategies, templates, tools, activities, lessons, games, and more. Teachers/staff will learn the fundamentals of Jewish After School along with proven teaching techniques, and then apply their new strategies and skills to their existing programs.
Organizations will grow by attracting different families and widening their impact. Organizations visibility will also grow in the community as they pioneer a new model for delivering Jewish education.
Jewish Communities will grow with a new audience of young people learning about Judaism and developing positive associations with their Jewish experiences. More families will learn and connect to Judaism as a result of Jewish After School

What does the Accelerator provide?

COACHING
In addition to individualized coaching from a Jewish After School expert, accelerator participants will benefit from a diverse faculty with expertise in:
- Jewish education
- Experiential learning
- Change management
- Adaptive leadership
- Logistics and operations
A cohort experience: You are not in this alone. Being a part of the Jewish After School Accelerator means joining a cohort of professional colleagues who are also building Jewish After Schools. Throughout the Accelerator, in person and online, you will exchange best practices, conduct site visits, and tackle challenges together.
COLLATERAL
We have all of the tools you need to plan, launch, and run a Jewish After School program including:
- Human resource assets from job descriptions to onboarding and training materials
- A student curriculum that is built specifically for kids in the after school learning environment
- Strategy and planning for Enrollment and Transportation
- Marketing and communications templates and calendars
Our tools and resources make it easy to adapt your Jewish After School program to fit the mission, vision, and goals of your organization.
CAPITAL

Accelerator participants are eligible to receive a matching grant of up to $100,000 over three years.
Our program model is designed to achieve financial sustainability based on earned revenue alone by the third year of operation.