Think Tank No. 4 "A Rising Tide Raises All Boats!"

I thought that today would be our fourth and final Think Tank session on synagogue education. I thought today would be the last time I wrote an entry into this blog! Instead, today became a historic moment for Jewish education in the Greater Palm Beaches. Thankfully, after today's SSEI Community Wide Think Tank on Synagogue Education, today is the first day of our Think Tank's decision to forge ahead together...to the future and beyond! The title of today's blog is, "A rising tide raises all boats." Coined by John F. Kennedy, it describes the idea that when an economy is performing well, all people will benefit from it. Today, our Community Wide Think Tank appropriated this expression to describe our own momentum to establish community support for synagogue school education. How apt! Creating a "well-performing economy" of commitment, collaboration and constructive ideas for synagogue school improvement, we are a tide that can raise all the synagogue boats!

Representing our education leaders, lay leaders, and clergy at yesterday's meeting, we listened to three community voices for synagogue education. After hearing our three representatives speak most about what has been meaningful to them about this year's Think Tank, the Synagogue School Enhancement Initiative, and more, the whole group agreed to pursue the following:

• Create a lay/clergy/professional team task force to explore the pros and cons between making our classrooms "fun" versus making them "serious," i.e. where learning is taken seriously
• Create additional task forces which tackle issues such as community wide goals/objectives for students, the “linking” of all the parts to make the whole in synagogue life, developing better professional support networks for teachers...the kinds of issues that we know will help us show that there is a “return on the investment” in synagogue education
• Keep the Think Tank going during the 2010-11 school year... “our continued visible involvement with the issue of synagogue education will show how committed we are to working together”
• Propose more synagogues create visions of congregational engagement
• Use the Think Tank to explore expansion of existing collaborations such as the group marketing strategy currently being developed by Congregation Beit Chaverim, Temple Israel, and Temple Beth El
• Create a community wide marketing and public relations strategy for Jewish education in our community... “a rising tide raises all boats!”

And to top it off, the Think Tank unanimously passed a motion to explore financial support of synagogue school education that includes the signatures of all the supporters--a historic moment for all!

I think I don't need to say anything more here; the Think Tank has said it all! Thank you everyone! Hag Pesah Kasher V'sameah...best wishes for a healthy and happy Passover!

Lynne