Leo Baeck Day School

The Leo Baeck Day School is a Greater Toronto Area Reform Jewish day school comprised of over eight hundred students from Nursery to Grade Eight. Named in honour of Rabbi Leo Baeck, it has two campuses, in Thornhill and Toronto.

School information

Former School Director Zita Gardner retired in July 2004. She was replaced by David Prashker, formerly a senior teacher at a British private school and Housemaster of Polack's, the last Jewish boarding facility in Europe. The Leo Baeck Day School, under David Prashker's direction, recently released a five-year plan, which, among other things, reconstituted the school's Board of Trustees as a Strategic Board, focusing on the future of the school and leaving day-to-day management in the hands of the professionals. The renovation of the South Campus at Holy Blossom Temple is now in the planning stage. In 2006 the school was accepted as a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate program for the Middle School years. The introduction of "Best Practices" in the Primary grades supports the IB philosophy. The installation of laptops in every classroom has been accomplished, as the first phase of a major introduction of technology into the teaching programme. This year the school introduced a "roaming lab" of laptops for student use, and installed Smartboards at each campus.

Leo Baeck is run by the Director, a principal at each campus (Eric Petersiel at the South Campus and Howard Laderman at the North Campus), a middle school coordinator (Ted Liss at South Campus, and Sharon Levy at the north) and the Board, which is composed of parents and members of the community. The school is affiliated with the Board of Jewish Education of Toronto, the Union for Reform Judaism, and PARDeS, the Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools.

The North Campus includes classes from Nursery through Grade 8 and the South Campus includes classes from SK through Grade 8. In the year 2005-2006, The Leo Baeck Day School South Campus had its first graduating class.

Leo Baeck publishes "The Baeck and Call" every quarter, a newsletter with school updates and events.

In March 2008, Leo Baeck director David Prashker resigned over sexually explicit and violent poetry posted on his website. An anonymous email was sent to parents alerting them to the existence of the poetry. Prashker is a published poet and author and was recruited to lead the school in 2004. [ [http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14284&Itemid=86 The Canadian Jewish News - Leo Baeck director resigns over explicit poetry ] ]

References

External links

*Official|http://www.leobaeck.ca