March 13, 2008
After an 18-month self-assessment and more than a decade after the state withdrew its oversight from all private schools, the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth has earned a recommendation for accreditation from the powerful Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
The decision was unanimous, according to association team members who made an informal presentation at the end of their three-day assessment of the school last month. The formal report will not be released until early May.
Describing JEC as “exceptional,” they praised its “laudable” accomplishments and said it “meets and exceeds all the standards established by the Middle States Association.”
School officials consider it a validation from the national educational establishment of the Orthodox institution founded by Rabbi Pinchas Mordechai Teitz in 1941. Around 1,000 students from around the state and beyond attend its Yeshiva of Elizabeth elementary school, Bruriah High School for Girls, and Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy boys’ high school.
The assessment brought to an end a long, “nerve-wracking process” for the school, said associate dean Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz, grandson of the founder. But, he told his staff, it was also just the beginning; the school would soon begin to implement the improvements that the agency recommended and that they had formulated themselves.
In an interview soon after the inspection, Teitz said the process actually began back in 1997, when the New Jersey State Supreme Court ruled that the state Department of Education should not be in the business of accrediting private schools, religious or secular.
“At that point, we thought we should get other accreditation,” he said. “We made a number of starts on the process and did major chunks of the work, but each time it petered out because we didn’t have anyone overseeing the whole thing.”
With the worsening economy escalating competition both for students and for grant money, it became more important to get the accreditation. “Many corporations offer matching gifts but only to accredited institutions,” Teitz said.
In 2006, Arnold Gelman, then one of the Bruriah vice principals, was assigned the task of overseeing the process. He recently retired from the school, but Teitz credited him with shepherding the three schools through the 800-page volume of questions. It involved answering queries about 14 aspects of the schools’ functioning, covering everything from mission statement and academic curricula to finances and administration.
Teitz said the process “was a wonderful opportunity for great introspection, for us to take a step back and look at what we’re doing, as one organism, and to see what one division might learn from another, and how to smooth the transitions between them.” In February, a nine-member team arrived at the school for a three-day inspection. Four of its members had experience on the faculty of Jewish schools; one was from a Christian school and so also familiar with religious school requirements.
“We were definitely not going to be able to pull the wool over their eyes,” Teitz said.
Among the association’s findings was a need for improvement in three areas: the writing programs at all levels, Hebrew language instruction, and budgeting. Teitz said those recommendations were contained in the school’s self-assessment as well.
“Thank goodness, they agreed with our priorities,” he said. “It means we were objective in our self-assessment and we know what to focus on.”
Administrators were also “very excited — really super excited —” by the praise lavished on the school.
“It was unbelievable,” Teitz said. “It’s a feather in our cap to get such a glowing report.”
The school plans to feature the agency’s findings prominently in its marketing materials and recruitments efforts.
“We are already holding meetings to plan how we are going to put the changes into practice,” Teitz said.
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