Shulamith School for Girls finds permanent home at 305 Cedarhurst Ave., fulfilling a long-held dream

A dream has become a reality for the Shulamith School for Girls, as it embarked on the new academic year in a newly acquired building at 305 Cedarhurst Ave. in Cedarhurst, previously the Lawrence school district’s Number Five School.

Shulamith celebrated the acquisition at a signing ceremony, attended by several local elected officials, on Oct. 27.

“We’re pleased that the building is now the permanent home for many of the children,” Murray Forman, president of the Lawrence Board of Education, said, “and it is fulfilling its purpose as a true community school.”

In a public referendum last March, Lawrence district voters approved the sale, and Shulamith School officials can now focus on the future of the building they have called home since 2015 through a leasing agreement.

The school initially paid $500,000 per year to rent the 97,000-square-foot building, which was built in 1929, and last school year the rent increased to $600,000. Before Shulamith moved in, its students were housed in several locations, including Temple Beth El, in Cedarhurst, and Sons of Israel, in Woodmere.

According to the rental agreement, Shulamith was responsible for the building maintenance. But as time went on, school officials questioned why they were spending money on a building they didn’t own.

“Being that we didn’t know that we would have the opportunity to purchase the building or have the necessary funding for it, whatever we did, there was a lot of Band-Aid work,” Rabbi Moshe Monczyk, Shulamith’s executive director, said. “For the last couple of years, it was just, ‘Let’s get by — let’s make sure the kids have what they need.’

“The goal of the school is to have the absolute best campus,” Monczyk added. “Not just in the Five Towns area, but really to have a comfortable, safe and modern building that will not just educate the next generation, but kids that will walk in here with a smile.”

The building’s needs will now be a top priority, he said. Once occupied by Lawrence elementary school students, it has become outdated.

“Now it’s our job to get it up to date,” Monczyk said.

He noted that the building needs a new boiler, heating system and roof. The school will address those needs through what it is calling the 305 Capital Campaign. The fundraising campaign, which has been advertised on the school website, would also finance a expansive gymnasium; an innovative room dedicated to science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, classes; a state-of-the-art science lab and a science learning center; a Hebrew library and two multipurpose lunchrooms.

Due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, the fundraising campaign has not begun yet. But Monczyk hinted at one in collaboration with Charidy Campaign, a company that helps nonprofit organizations attract more donors and raise money.

Along with the Cedarhurst Avenue building, the school also has an early-childhood center and a high school, both in Woodmere, on Irving Place and Franklin Place, respectively.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, County Legislator Howard Kopel and Cedarhurst Mayor Benjamin Weinstock welcomed the elementary school to a new era at the signing.

“The Number Five School has always been a school, as long as I can remember,” Weinstock said. “Andrew Parise, our former mayor, always felt kids need a school they can walk to if they wanted, or just have a local presence like that. Now that it’s a yeshiva, it continues its legacy as a local school.

“It’s very nice it remained a school,” Weinstock added.

The Long Island City-based Greiner-Maltz Real Estate marketed the site nationally and locally in 2021 for any brokers, developers or investors who were interested in submitting a purchase bid. The company also managed the sale of the Number Six School to the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach for $8.5 million in 2014.

Lawrence  also sold the Number One School, in 2007, to developer David Neuberg, for $29.1 million. That building became the Regency condominium complex.