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Photos by Charles Rafshoon

SOUTHERN MODEL

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Left: Teacher Tracie Schuster welcomes students.

Above: Students at the New Atlanta Jewish Community High School on the first day of school.

JULIE WIENER
Staff Writer

Mr

ith Atlanta opening a
community Jewish
day high school last
month and Detroit still
in the planning stages, the city of
peaches may be a step ahead of
Motown.
But Atlanta's transdenominational
school also owes its beginnings, in
part, to Detroit. Southfield native
Michael Rosenzweig, who chairs the
New Atlanta Jewish Community High
School's board, was an active player in
getting the 19-student school up and
running.
According to Rosenzweig, Atlanta's
community of 80,000 Jews has long
supported Jewish day schools of all
denominations. But despite growing
enrollment in the elementary schools,
few day school graduates were contin-
uing their Jewish learning into the
high school years, and enrollment at
the Orthodox high school was stag-
nant.
In 1992, when Atlanta's Jewish fed-
eration-appointed task force conclud-
ed there was a need and demand for a
second Jewish high school, one with
appeal beyond the Orthodox commu-

10/3
1997

16

The Atlanta experience may offer
blueprints for a new Jewish high
school in Detroit.

nity, "this group of us took it and
ran," said Rosenzweig.
High school advocates formed a
steering committee and spent the next
few years meeting with educators and
rabbis within the community and
throughout the country. Along the
way, the project was chosen as a "lead
city" by the Council for Initiatives in
Jewish Education, clarified its goals
and mission statement and formally
incorporated.
In 1995, the committee began the
long search for headmaster, seeking an
experienced high school administrator
with a rigorous background in Judaic
studies. But due to a nationwide
shortage of Jewish school administra-
tors, they settled on a temporary solu-
tion: pairing a non-Jewish administra-
tor with a Jewish educator.
"The two get along famously," said
Rosenzweig, who conceded the com-
munity was apprehensive at first about
entrusting the school to a gentile.

"This is potentially an interim solu-
tion for the Jewish community in gen-
eral, until we can fill the pipeline with
more experienced administrators and
Jewish educators."
Fortunately for Atlanta, raising
funds and recruiting students — two
of Detroit's greatest challenges —
proved easy. Although Atlanta's federa-
tion has not yet made a financial con-
tribution, gifts from local philan-
thropists and a grant from the Avi
Chai Foundation provided the $2 mil-
lion necessary to recruit staff and
operate the school for the next three
years.
And thanks to networking efforts
with colleges and headmaster Richard
Hansen's reputation as a skilled high
school administrator, the high school
committee was able to persuade many
parents that enrolling their children in
the new school would not be a risky
venture.
With six full-time faculty, a free

laptop computer for each student antO
financial aid available, the school —
temporarily situated on Atlanta's
Jewish Community Center campus —
enticed a critical mass of 19 ninth-
and 10th-graders from a range of
denominations for the first year. And
with large eighth-grade classes this
year in area elementary day schools,
prospects for growth are good.
Rosenzweig concedes that the
111.1
-
unpopularity of Atlanta's public
schools also helped the new school
draw in Jewish students. "One of the
reasons we have booming Jewish day
schools is that we have relatively poor
public schools," he said. "Many stu-
dents would go to a private school
anyway, and day school is seen as the
most sensible alternative."
And with plur a lism one of the 1111
school's underlying principles,
Rosenzweig hopes the new high school
spurs Jewish growth as well as conti-
nuity.
"We want to have a school that is 4
constantly in dialogue with itself and
with the community," said
Rosenzweig. "We want to educate and
nurture future Jewish adults and lea*
ers in an environment in which they
will come to approach one another
with an entirely different attitude." ❑

