JCC Association of North America, Jewish Federations of North America, and the Union for Reform Judaism announced the expansion of ElevatEd, the groundbreaking collaborative initiative intended to transform the field of early childhood Jewish education (ECJE). The vast undertaking, launched in the summer of 2023 to address the early childhood educator shortage, will add seven new cities to the project for the 2024-2025 school year: Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; Miami, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Seattle, Washington; and St. Louis, Missouri.
Together with its major national funding partners—Jim Joseph Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, and the Samuels Family Foundation—and alongside practitioners, educators, and community leaders, ElevatEd, an over $10 million project, is pioneering bold solutions to an urgent crisis around the recruitment and retention of educators.
The initiative increases the opportunity for families to take part in high-quality ECJE, exponentially expands the involvement of Jewish families in Jewish communal life, and explores how deep and thoughtful collaboration in local communities and across North America can advance a powerful, shared vision of sustained engagement. This comprehensive effort also professionalizes the field of ECJE through a focus on teacher recruitment, training, credentialing, and mentoring.
As a three-year pilot program, ElevatEd seeks to increase, by as many as 30 in each community, the number of educators for a total of more than 300 emerging early childhood educators. ElevatEd launched in the summer of 2023 with five communities: Boston, Massachusetts; Denver-Boulder, Colorado; East Bay, California; Houston, Texas; and Long Island, New York, and now seven additional communities are joining the project.
“We are thrilled to partner with seven new cities across the country for the second cohort of ElevatEd, as we continue to refine our talent and recruitment strategies and adapt our curriculum based on valuable feedback from the first cohort. While expanding into new diverse communities, we are deepening our relationships in the five communities from our first cohort. This dual focus allows ElevatEd to test and strengthen our approach across different environments, ensuring that we effectively support the entire Early Childhood Jewish Education field,” said ElevatEd executive director Orna Siegel.
With the start of the school year, participating emerging educators will begin a year of learning, 18 months of mentorship support, and will receive funds to support their work toward a credential in early childhood education. Equally important, mid-career educators in each ElevatEd school will participate in a research-based mentor training program to support the emerging educators in their own schools.
“Based on our experience with ElevatEd’s first cohort, we’ve crafted a year-long learning program that offers educators personalized curricula, tailored to their diverse backgrounds and the developmental stages of the students they teach, with a focus on infants and toddlers – the youngest members in our community. We’ve also incorporated unique learning tracks that accommodate the diverse Jewish knowledge of our educators. This new curriculum empowers educators to harness the potential of ECJE to foster deep, long-term family engagement within the Jewish community,” shares Sasha Kopp, senior director of ElevatEd education and engagement.
ElevatEd’s Jewish learning tracks, which are tailored to educators’ experience levels and familiarity with Judaism, and the age group they teach, include an introductory course for those new to Judaism, an intermediate course focusing on Jewish holidays, and an advanced track for educators in schools that teach Torah or the weekly parsha. Additionally, learning tracks for early childhood program directors are offered, incorporating the best recruitment practices from the business and nonprofit sectors into early childhood education settings.
ElevatEd’s teacher recruitment methods include a year-long professional development program for early childhood directors, aimed at enhancing their confidence and skills in talent acquisition. ElevatEd provides access to an applicant tracking system with automated features and data-driven insights while partnering with a recruitment process outsourcing company to implement digital marketing strategies, develop an employment value proposition, and directly recruit teachers for schools nationwide.
In addition to ElevatEd’s national funding partners, the second cohort is made possible by local funders in partnership with donors in each community to build a long-term financial model for improvement and growth. The second cohort’s local donors include one anonymous private foundation, Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Greater Miami Jewish Federation, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, and Jewish Federation of St. Louis.