Educating students, ‘from head to heart’

In celebration of having a building to call its own, the Shulamith School for Girls held an open house on Sept. 2 at 305 Cedarhurst Ave. in Cedarhurst, the former Number Five School in the Lawrence School District, which Shulamith will occupy for at least this year, and possibly 2016-17 as well.
Shulamith’s enrollment includes 540 students from nursery school to ninth grade. The girls’ yeshiva is in its first year of establishing a high school. A majority of its students live in the Five Towns, West Hempstead and Ocean-
side.
The school, which was formerly housed in Temple Beth El, also in Cedarhurst, agreed to lease the building from the Lawrence district for a year for $500,000, and there is an option for another year. The school’s executive director, Rabbi Perry Tirschwell, said he would love to make 305 Cedarhurst Ave. Shulamith’s permanent home. “Our contract says that we can stay one year more after this current one,” he said. “God willing, we’d love to stay many years here.”
Tirschwell said that the move was necessary, and that he anticipates that students will thrive in the new location. “We are a very quickly growing school,” he said. “This is a tremendous step up for us. I thank District 15 for supporting us in our endeavor. We believe that girls can truly flourish in their own school, in an all-girl environment.”
School opened on Tuesday, and the students were welcomed by fresh paint on the walls and new furniture and lockers. “We still had so much to do to prepare,” Tirschwell said. “We are trying to honor the 88-year history of this building. It felt like a month between our homecoming on Sept. 2 to our opening day.”
Shayna Wasser, a daughter of Cedarhurst Trustee Israel Wasser, is a Shulamith sixth-grader. “Not only as a trustee, but as a parent, I am excited for this school to be here,” Israel said. “My daughters have been attending since the nursery level. There were three different locations for the three divisions, and now they’re all brought together here. This is beautiful for the community, as it has nice grounds for a school.”