Not your mother’s yeshiva

The hallway and classroom walls have been freshly painted and are adorned with words and phrases such as “Discover” and “Make Your Parents Proud,” and as you walk through the Shulamith High School for Girls there is a sense that the 35 freshmen and sophomores are really learning.

After several years of crowding into Temple Beth El in Cedarhurst, the Shulamith school leased the Number Five School from the Lawrence School District for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years for $500,000 per year. Shulamith and Lawrence officials are currently negotiating a new agreement.

The first-through eighth- grade classes — 440 students — use most of the Number Five School, and the high school, which started up nearly two years ago, uses a portion of the building on Cedarhurst Avenue in Cedarhurst. Nursery through kindergarten — 100 students — have their own building on Irving Place in Woodmere.

This year, 25 girls joined the original 10 high school students, and soon Shulamith officials will welcome another freshmen class and plan the curriculum for the school’s first 11th grade. Borrowing from a Silicon Valley giant, school officials showed how important the first 10 students were by framing their headshots in silhouette, as Google did to honor pioneering animator Charlotte “Lotte” Reiniger.

“We live what we teach and embrace the best of the 21st century,” said Principal Rina Zerykier, who previously taught at Yeshivah of Flatbush. “We respect our students and are very much student-centered.”

In establishing the high school, Zerykier said, a process was developed to recruit educational talent that included creating a leadership team of veteran teachers that mentor younger educators.

Coordinated by Yael Harari, the director of educational innovation, staff development is conducted in the summer, with updates during the school year. Harari helps to create unit plans and keeps the teachers on a “student-centered” path. “Instead of having teachers on the stage, we have guides on the side who enable the students to gain the skills they need,” Harari said. “We have individualized goals, and as the year goes on, the teachers meet with me and we re-evaluate those goals.”

Chaya Maza has been at Shulamith High since its start and has taught for a decade, splitting time between the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach and Woodmere’s Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva. Maza serves as the human resources and systems designer and math coordinator. A member of the leadership committee, she mentors a pair of less experienced teachers by reviewing their lessons plans, observing them in the classroom and offering advice.

“I help them prepare for accepting authority, mapping out a unit and handling parent-teacher conferences,” Maza said. “If they ask me about a specific way I handled something, I tell them, but everyone has to have a style that works for them. I help support them and find what works best for them.”

Tamara Klein, an English teacher who is also part of the leadership committee, said that mentoring empowers the faculty. She added that “student-centered” doesn’t just mean classroom learning. “Last year, the students helped to create the cell- phone policy,” said Klein, who has also been at Shulamith for two years and is a 10-year veteran, having previously taught at the Manhattan High School for Girls. “We heard what they had to say and put a policy together.”

Listening to the students also extends to extracurricular activities. Whether several students, or just one, want a club, such requests are typically accommodated. “Soccer and basketball are popular, but we also have one girl who wants chess, and five are in the darts club,” said student adviser Shifra Raskin. Originally from Holland, where darts is a huge sport, Raskin teaches the girls all aspects of the popular pub game, which, needless to say, is not usually part of a yeshiva’s curriculum.

As part of the 21st century learning, there is a Makerspace classroom, where the girls can get creative with tools. There are also after-school clubs for app design, iMovie and screenwriting.

In Room 214, where Rabbi Ya’akov Trump was teaching a Jewish law class on April 3, a dozen girls were shouting out responses to his questions. “It’s a challenge — I show the relevance and demonstrate how the laws really apply in the 21st century,” said Trump, who is also an assistant rabbi at Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst.

“We’re building from the ground up and creating ideas. The teachers and everybody have bought into the mission, and we can adapt and grow together.”