Religious School aka YEP! Youth Education Program and CK Tzedek Teen Initiative

YOUTH EDUCATION PROGRAM (YEP)

Yup! It is time to register your child for YEP! Our school year begins on Sunday, August 20^th at 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (please note that we changed our end time). We hope you will invite your friends to check out why YEP! was voted the BEST OF Hebrew Schools in the Jewish News 2023 Readers’ Choice Awards!

Fall semester dates:

August 20^th & 27^th

September 10^th

October 1^st, 15^th & 22^nd

November 5^th & 19^th

December 3^rd & 10^th

Please take a moment to fill out the attached registration form for each child you are enrolling. You can pay the $150 YEP! supply fee (per child), using this link, YEP! supply fee.

If you haven’t already renewed your synagogue membership, you can do so by filling out the attached form. Please note that all YEP! families must renew their membership at the Family Membership (2 or more living in the same household) or at one of the Kehillah Community Supporters levels.

YEP!, our Youth Education Program, is fun, educational, and creative – your children and grandchildren will love it. YEP! is tuition free for Kehillah member families. YEP! begins in Kindergarten and continues through High School. Our High School aged students become madrichim (helpers) and attend Hebrew High at the JCC with other local Jewish youth.

At Kehillah, Jewish education is a life-long experience.

One of the most important and unique components of our Religious School, Youth Education Program (YEP!) is our use of online learning platforms.

In the Fall of 2021, we began to use a curriculum that has been implemented in more than 230 Jewish schools across the United States. This curriculum, from Shalom Learning, will allow us to teach, enhance, and innovate with greater accuracy from grade level to grade level so that our students are learning and adding to their knowledge each year.  This is a curriculum that can be taught both online and in-person.

In addition to our classes together, students will log into the ShalomLearning portal to do activities between classes. Most of the time, these will be fun videos to watch outside of class and reflect on what your child learned.

This curriculum uses universal Jewish values including the following: Teshuvah (taking responsibility for our actions), B’tzelem Elohim (honoring the image of God in ourselves), Gevurah (using one’s inner and outer strengths), Achrayut (doing what you can to make the world a better place), HaKarat HaTov (seeking joy and being grateful), Koach HaDibbur (understanding the power of words) and Shalom (helping to create a calmer and more peaceful world). These Jewish values give the curriculum a central focus from which we can explore holidays, Israel, traditions, Torah stories, community, and ourselves.

The 4th through Middle School students will also be using Shalom Learning’s JLearnHub for Hebrew.  Through this amazing online program, the students will be able to learn the Hebrew letters, vowels, and prayers at their own pace.  Our wonderful Hebrew teachers will be guiding and assisting the students as they go through the program.  They will also be enhancing your child’s learning by meeting with your child either individually or in a small group to go over Hebrew skills, reading, and to check for understanding.

The students in grades K-3 will continue learning the Hebrew letters.  The goal for them is to recognize the letters and the sounds the letters make.  The students will review the letters they learned last year and will begin learning the remaining letters throughout the school year.

Our teachers and staff are instrumental in helping to refine and shape the lessons so that each lesson can be geared towards your individual child.  The overall curriculum, ShalomLearning forum, and jlearnhub Hebrew content is overseen by our Director of Curriculum, Dr. Stephanie Kirklin.  Please contact Renee Joffe, [email protected] with questions and comments!