Aleph School News

Gary Krupp After much detailed study and extensive planning, I am delighted to inform you about important changes at our award-winning Aleph School. Beginning this fall, our pre-school program will be redesigned to more effectively accommodate the needs of working parent families. In addition, in response to parental requests, starting in September, the Aleph School will be offering the Twin Cities first Jewish Early Childhood Family Education (J-ECFE) program for infants and their families!

These exciting developments add to our Aleph School’s 70-year-old tradition of providing a loving, nurturing and educational Jewish environment for our pre-schoolers and their parents.

Better serving young families and expanding educational opportunities for our tots – from infancy through pre-kindergarten age – are explicit goals of the synagogue’s strategic plan.

Last winter, an Infant Care Task Force headed by Debbie Mann was convened to determine the feasibility of offering infant care at Beth El. Through online surveys, discussions with parents and staff, interviews with other area synagogues and daycare facilities that offer infant care, the task force evaluated the feasibility of changes at Aleph School and the potential costs and revenues of infant care were studied. Several recommendations were made to better serve our young families.

Those recommendations were approved unanimously by the Board in April and include:

  • Rolling admission – allowing children to enter Aleph School anytime during the school year when they are 16 months old.
  • Providing year-round programming, including in August.
  • Expanding Aleph School hours, now opening at 7:15 a.m. and closing at 5:45 p.m.
  • Adding a Jewish early childhood family education experience for parents and their young children, from infancy through 16 months. This is a unique opportunity to engage young children and their parents in parent-child activities, parent discussion to learn about child development and parenting and children’s activity times, all designed to provide a stimulating Jewish setting for a child’s healthy development.

After evaluating costs and other factors, the board decided not to offer infant care at the present time. This decision was made in part because of the prohibitive cost of retrofitting current classrooms to accommodate Minnesota State requirements for infant care. However, the Board endorsed the recommendation that when the Capital Campaign builds new Aleph School classrooms, they should comply with state infant care standards to allow for the option of offering infant care in the future. With these changes, our Aleph School will continue to offer an excellent program that better accommodates the needs of parents who work outside the home as well as all families. Please tell your children, relatives and friends and encourage them to call us. We would love to arrange a visit and discuss ways that Aleph School can meet the needs of parents and children.

Todah rabbah to all Aleph School parents who participated in focus groups and responded to surveys and to members of the Infant Care Task Force and Gail Jordani, Director of Aleph School and staff for their many contributions to adding to our legacy of excellent programming for our tiniest treasures.

To find out more about the Jewish Early Childhood Family Education program and Aleph School, please call Gail Jordani at 952-920-4169.