As we recently shared with you, Wise School has embarked on the process of re-accreditation, which will culminate in the Spring of 2021. The largest part of this process is our own reflective self-study, a five-chapter report that we will submit to WASC in February of 2021.  This past fall, we started with Chapter 1, which asks us to reflect on “our past”, specifically the progress we’ve made on our four primary goals and action plans, along with any significant developments since our last WASC visit.

We completed Chapter 1 in January and I’m pleased to report to you that not only did we follow through on our school wide action plan items, but we have added many wonderful components to our program.  Here is a brief summary of our Chapter 1 self-study.

Significant developments that have had a positive impact on our school over the past several years include:

  • Our beautiful Katz Family Pavilion has made Wise School a very popular location for our own and other schools’ sports teams, and for many special events involving our families and community.
  • We are in the second year of our Shaliach program, which helps our students connect directly to the state of Israel. Our Shaliach is on campus all-day, every day, working side by side with teachers and students in all aspects of our Hebrew and Judaic Studies programs.
  • We started a grade 6 advisory program, mirroring the typical middle school model.   These classes meet once a week, and focus on social-emotional learning, collaboration, growth mindset, coping skills and inclusion of friends.  Life skills lessons include units on time management, organization, and middle school interviewing skills.
  • Our Wise Learning Process (WLP) continues to become more and more integral into so many aspects of what we do in our curriculum.  We now have two WLP coach-leaders, who facilitate monthly meetings with grade-level WLP leaders (including members of our Hebrew/Judaic faculty), planning cross-curricular integration and designing learning experiences using all strands of our WLP.
  • Our 6th grade Hebrew tracks tap into student interests and add the element of choice into our Hebrew instruction.

These are but a few of the many exciting upgrades and initiatives that have come to life recently for the benefit of our students.

Our school wide action plan from our last accreditation included four primary goals:

  1. Educational Advisory – This committee meets three times per year and serves in an advisory capacity (not a formal decision-making body) to support our Head of School. The committee consists of parents, faculty, academic leadership and experienced community members.
  2. STEAM program – Each year we get better and better at infusing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) directly and frequently into our core curriculum.  We now have a STEAM team made up of teachers from each of these disciplines who meet weekly to create and plan our annual STEAM Day, and to connect with each grade level to design and facilitate appropriate cross-curricular STEAM lessons and academic experiences.
  3. Integration of our WLP into Hebrew and Judaic Studies (JS) – The Wise Learning Process (WLP) is now evident across all disciplines including Judaic studies (JS).  The JS Scope and Sequence has become the guideline for K-6 curriculum mapping in all of our JS classes. 
  4.  Establishment of an Endowment – Almost $1,300,000 was raised/pledged in our Generation Endowment fund which is currently held in the Cleveland Jewish Community Foundation. It is our goal to continually add to this endowment to support financial aid scholarships to our school.

Clearly, much great work has been done these past several years to improve Wise School.  The biggest thing I glean from this reflection on our recent past is how much we have to be proud of, as well as the value of going through this self-study process and goal setting.  We are currently close to completing Chapter 2 of this report, focusing on “the present”, in which we examine multiple data sources including enrollment, demographics, surveys and academic achievement. We look forward to reporting out to you a summary of this analysis this spring.

-John Heffron, Elementary Principal