NP
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Election
2004
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Remember
When
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Middle School Alternative
Hillel will accept sixth-grade students from public schools.
Passing between classes are Hillel students Brooke Selik, 12, of Bloomfield Hills, Rebecka Medina, 12, of Southfield, Meghan
Plotnick, 12, of Windsor and Liz Traison, 13, of West Bloomfield.
DIANA LIEBERMAN
StaffMiter
P
ublic school students enter-
ing sixth grade next year will
have the option of attending
Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit instead.
Under "lateral entry," new students
will likely be placed in separate
Hebrew classes, but will otherwise be
integrated into the general Hillel cur-
riculum, said Steve Freedman, Hillel
head of school.
Hillel serves students from kinder-
garten through eighth grade. It is part
of the Solomon Schechter Day School
Association, affiliated with the United
Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
Freedman, who came to Hillel last
summer, said the Farmington Hills
school is "committed to a Jewish day
school education and wants to offer
Jewish teens who have not previously
attended our school the benefit of a
Hillel education."
In the past, students were strongly
encouraged to enter Hillel by second
grade because of the school's rigorous
Judaic studies component.
We want to open our doors so
more Jewish students can benefit from
our special community," Freedman
said.
During the 2002-2003 school year,
Hillel cut expenses $600,000 from the
preceding year. Enrollment has
dropped from about 720 students last
year to 656 this year.
However, Freedman said, the deci-
sion to begin the sixth-grade entry
program is not about increasing
school enrollment — because I don't
know how large the school should
be."
"It's not going to be a money-mak-
ing program, especially next year," he
said. "Basically, it doesn't have to gen-
erate a profit, but it can't generate a
loss either."
Last year, Hillel awarded about $1.4
million in tuition assistance. Although
no new scholarship money will be set
aside for the students accepted into
the lateral entry program, families
may apply for existing scholarship
funds, Freedman said.
Day School Choice
The Jewish Academy of Metropolitan
Detroit (JAMD), a day high school,
has had great success in integrating
students from public schools into the
general school population, and this
has encouraged Freedman in his
efforts to widen the student body at
Hillel.
Freedman called sixth grade, when
public schools move students from
elementary to middle school, "a natu-
ral access point."
"If someone is going to make a
decision to enter Hillel in sixth grade,
either they are thinking of JAMD or
are going to be thinking of JAMD,"
he said.
"We envision that most [of the new
students] will be in transitional
Hebre-w [classes]," he said.
"Obviously, it will be a case-by-case
decision."
Aside from Hillel, the only other
non-Orthodox Jewish day elementary
school in the Detroit metropolitan
area is the 95-student Hebrew Day
School of Ann Arbor (HDS), a
Solomon Schechter school for chil-
dren in kindergarten through fifth
grade.
Beginning in first grade, the school's
Hebrew classes are entirely conducted
in Hebrew, said HDS principal Dina
Shtull Leber. "For this reason, we
encourage families, if they are going
to transfer in to the school, to come
in by second grade," she said.
Most students who graduate from
HDS continue their education in
public or private schools in the Ann
Arbor area, Shtull Leber said. A few
attend Hillel beginning in sixth grade.
"We already have multiple group-
ings within each grade," Freedman
said. "For instance, I think we have
six sections of math in eighth grade
alone.
Hillel's new lateral entry program
helps serve the greatest range of
Jewish children, Freedman said.
"In the ideal world," he said, "every
kid who wants a Jewish education
should be able to have one." ❑
A meeting for parents of fourth-
and fifth-grade students interested
in Hillel's lateral entry program
will be held 7 p.m. Wednesday,
Jan. 21, at Hillel, 32200
Middlebelt Road, Farmington
Hills. For information, contact
Helene Brody, (248) 539 - 1483 or
hbrody@hillelday.org
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1/16
2004
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