Yavneh in the News

Yavneh adds new Junior Kindergarten for 2008-2009

After a careful analysis of our own programs and many conversations with local preschool educators, Yavneh Day School is proud to announce its Junior Kindergarten program beginning in the 2008-2009 school year.

The Junior Kindergarten program will emphasize a developmental approach to learning. It will provide an enriching year of hands-on activities to enhance children's developmental "readiness" for Kindergarten, especially for those with late summer or fall birthdays. This class will be designed as a full day program from 8:30am to 3:30pm and will be included in all of our school-wide activities.

To be eligible for Yavneh's Junior Kindergarten program, your child must be five years of age by December 1, 2008. For information and application, please call Dana Lowy, Director of Admissions, at (408) 984-6700.

Yavneh becomes an "O Ambassador School"

Yavneh Day School has been selected as an Oprah Winfrey Ambassador School (a joint project of Oprah’s Angel Network and Free the Children projects). The goal of the program is to empower young leaders and educators to “dream big” and speed up global change through exploration of active learning and talking action. The program connects young people in North America with people around the world to create lasting change by working toward the UN Millennium Development Goals.

As an “O Ambassador School,” Yavneh Day School, along with hundreds of other students across the country, will join the global community in working toward goals in four main areas: poverty, education, health and sustainable development. Yavneh Day School students will learn to become active, compassionate and knowledgeable global citizens, working for “Tikkun Olam” by applying the school’s values of “Think, Care and Belong.”

Steven R. Bogad becomes new Head of School

A leader in Jewish day school education for the past 25 years, Steve Bogad comes to Yavneh with experience at day schools in California, Ohio, and Florida. While in graduate school at the University of California, Steve acted as the university representative to a special joint project with the Hebrew Union College which was looking at ways to enhance Jewish education. Steve has served as treasurer and accreditation chair of the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS), from which Yavneh received renewed accreditation last year.

"Our Jewish tradition of ethics and values is is central to its entire educational program," Steve believes. "A school must foster a dynamic, inclusive, and pluralistic environment in which all voices that identify with the traditions and communities of Judaism are understood to speak the words of the Living God. Through respect, humility, study, dialogue, and deep personal engagement, we seek to create a community of shared values, practices, and commitments. In a world of extraordinary diversity — social, cultural, racial, religious, and personal— I want students whose knowledge enables them to value difference, and not merely to know about it.

I believe that exploration is the nucleus of learning as children take in new information and combine it with all that they have understood and experienced in the past. Teaching them to think is what our tradition values and inspires us to do.

Steve's wife Sheryl is a Jewish educator, and their daughter, Kayla, is a freshman at Kehillah Jewish High School.

Rabbi Laurie Hahn Tapper is new Judaica Coordinator and Rabbi in Residence

Rabbi Tapper gew up in Palo Alto, was a member of Congregation Kol Emeth and was a counselor for Camps Swig and Newman. Her affiliation to the Peninsula is long and strong. Laurie graduated with honors in Jewish Studies from Stanford University, during which she spent her junior hear in Israel. She earned her rabbinical credentials as well as a master's degree in education administration from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and studied at the Pardes Institution at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was awarded a Wexner Graduate Fellowship, and as served as scholar-in-residence for various Hillel conferences throughout the United States. She came to Yavneh from the Brandeis Bardin Institute, where she was the director of collegiate and adult Programs.

"What excites me about this job," she says, "is that it is the progression of a mind over the years. What do we want a Yavneh graduate to be, Jewishly? Caring for the souls of each student is a geautiful place to start." She is impressed, she says, with both the "kevah" (structure, skill) and the "kavennah" (spirit, energy) of the teachers, students, and leaders of Yavneh. Rabbi Tapper will be working to build a tefillah curriculum that will help students approach prayers in a personal and meaningful way, "so that the experience will be of value to each student's intrinsic self."

Oprah Winfrey sponsors "ambassadors" at schools to work for "Tikkun Olam"

Steven R. Bogad
Head of School

Rabbi Laurie Hahn Tapper, Judaica Coordinator and Rabbi-in-Residence