PEJE Changes Direction.

The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education was founded about 20 years ago in an effort to foster Jewish Day School education. It provides a compendium of best practice materials, as well as various grants to Day School institutions. Kadima, in fact, has been blessed to get a variety of PEJE grants; they've come in the form of admissions experts, general consultants, and marketing specialists. We have a marketing consultant meeting with our marketing committee at the end of the month.

But with the Great Recession, things change, including PEJE. As a result, PEJE has decided to narrow its focus toward general sustainability of Jewish Day School educaiton. Its efforts will focus upon Head of School Development, Strategic Lay Leadership Development, and Financial Sustainability. PEJE puts it this way:

"While PEJE invested its resources during its first 12 years in seeding new schools and
building the capacity of existing schools, the new reality calls for higher-level leadership that focuses on sustaining the growth day schools have already achieved. Engaging school leaders, industry consultants, and Jewish communal leadership with PEJE experts in our strategic planning process, we identified three critical levers for day school sustainability: inspiring professional leadership, strategic board governance, and financial sustainability."

Of most important, is PEJE's statement that:

"To ensure the greatest impact for day schools, PEJE will be working at the regional and national levels with federations, denominational networks, foundations, central education agencies, and philanthropists."

In other words, the days of individual schools--like Kadima--receiving grants is over. PEJE will be focusing its efforts on a broader level, and apparently will not provide the detailed assistance it previously has. This also means that we will increase pressure upon us to raise our own funds. It also means that Kadima cannot go it alone; the big money and the big contributions may flow through major organizations, including the Jewish Federation and its BJE. We may need to reconsider our connection (or lack thereof) with the BJE.

It will be interesting to see how PEJE's change of direction influences day schools. PEJE has been a big player in Jewish Day Schools in the past; the future may be different.