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New Jersey Jewish News Schechter trustees decide to close Somerset school
After only one year in operation, the Somerset campus of Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union will discontinue operations at the end of the current academic year. The seven first-grade students attending the satellite campus, located at Temple Beth-El, a Reform synagogue in Hillsborough, will be able to attend the school’s Cranford campus in the fall. In an e-mail to NJ Jewish News, Gary M. Wingens, president of Schechter’s board of trustees, said that the board met March 27 and decided enrollment projections for 2006-07 “could not support the continued operation of the fledgling campus.” “By all accounts, the educational experience of the seven pioneer first-grade students this year was an outstanding success — a tribute to the wonderful teacher and principal involved in starting the school,” Wingens said, thanking the class parents for “embarking on this ambitious journey with us.” The first class was composed solely of first-graders, with plans to add a second grade in the fall of 2006. When plans for the Somerset campus were unveiled in January 2005, Wingens described it as a “feeder school” that would supplement the Cranford campus, which has about 100 students from pre-kindergarten to grade five. The Somerset campus was the first Jewish day school in Somerset County. It was considered a “unique strategic alliance” of the Conservative movement and PARDeS, the Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools. SSDS of Essex and Union opened its doors in 1965 with 18 students. Today the school has more than 850 students from 75 communities attending schools on its campuses in West Orange and Cranford. Ron Kaplan can be reached at RKaplan@njjewishnews.com. Comment | | |
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