THE NASSAU HERALD
(March 30, 2006)
North Shore Meets South Shore
Many students from area opt to attend new Great Neck yeshiva
By Andrew Coen
Ninth-grader Barry Kantrowitz attends school only 10 miles from his West Hempstead home, but the geography is far different from that of Nassau County's South Shore. Kantrowitz has plenty of company on the bus ride,
however: the many Orthodox students whose families choose to bypass schools near their homes and send their children to one of the newest high school yeshivas, the North Shore Hebrew Academy High School.
"There are tons of extracurriculars," said Kantrowitz, citing one of the main reasons he decided to attend NSHA. "It's very social. It's amazing academically."
NSHAHS, the only yeshiva with coed classes on Long Island, will become even more popular with students in communities like West Hempstead, the Five Towns, Oceanside, Merrick and Long Beach when it opens a brand new, state-of-the-art facility this fall. The new school, in which the yeshiva has invested a whopping $55 million, is being built on 11.5 acres just off the Long Island Expressway, and will feature 118,000 square-feet of educational space and be completely wireless, according to NSHAHS headmaster Dr. Daniel Vitow. It will also house music and art studios, an outdoor terrace, athletic facilities and a student lounge.
The new building will come five years after the yeshiva opened on Sept. 6, 2001, in an abandoned office building in the Lake Success business district, after Yeshiva officials decided to add a high school to complement its elementary and middle school. The yeshiva started off with 110 students, mainly from the Great Neck area, but it now draws 20 percent of its population from the South Shore, according to school officials. Its diverse population also includes students from Queens and Connecticut as well as youngsters from Israel, Italy and England, all of them a mix of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. "There is no one particular type of student here," said Laura Miller, the yeshiva's college counselor.
"It is not a North Shore school," said Vitow, a former principal of the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway High School in Cedarhurst. "It is a very eclectic population."
NSHAHS is also unique in that the school is exempt from having to give Regents exams, since it is accredited by the New York State Association of Long Island Schools. "We can teach for the sake of teaching and not for the sake of testing," said Vitow.
According to the yeshiva, 100 percent of its students move on to college, with many getting accepted by the college of their choice. The yeshiva was accredited by the Middle States Association before a senior class was even in place. "The college guidance program is superior to anyone else," said senior Alex Kurland of Merrick.
In addition to its academic offerings, NSHAHS attracts students with more than 100 extracurricular clubs, which include everything from art, writing and math to aviation, band and Yeshiva League Model Congress. There are 12 varsity boys' and girls' sports as well as equestrian, golf and European handball clubs. In keeping with the facility's plans to become wireless, teachers are already utilizing new technology by being in constant contact with students via e-mail.
NSHAHS also helps students get a sense of the real world with summer internship opportunities depending on their interests, which has recently included partnerships with the New York Jets, the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, the FBI as well as top fashion designers and architects. The yeshiva also requires students to work at local businesses during February of their senior year such as law offices, medical facilities and accounting firms.
"We custom tailor to every student," said Miller, who runs the internship program and added that the yeshiva makes sure the businesses give them valuable experience. "It's like a small liberal arts college." Freshman Megan Garber of Lawrence said she was attracted to the yeshiva because of the academic offerings and the music conservatory. "Everything here allows students to grow," Garber said.
NSHAHS junior Jeremy Goldstein of Cedarhurst, who is a member of the school's floor hockey and debate teams, said the school has many classes and clubs that are not offered at most yeshivas, including a class in Arabic that he has enjoyed. "It's Orthodox and it's modern, so it's been a good choice [for me]," said Goldstein.
In an interview at the yeshiva, Vitow reflected on when he first set foot in the abandoned office building to figure out how to design it into a temporary facility for his yeshiva, and couldn't find a single piece of paper, so he had to make his initial drawings on a napkin. Vitow said that even the temporary facility they have called home for the last five years is better than many other schools' buildings. "I think a lot of yeshivas would look at our temporary facility and say, 'We'll call it a day,'" he said.
"He had a chance [at] a principal's dream of creating a school from scratch," said Miller. "He wants to make this into the No. 1 modern Orthodox yeshiva in the country."
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JEWISH WEEK
(1/12/2005)
Building Their Dream
Morty Ain - Special To The Jewish Week
L.I. academy upbeat about new school opening
in ’06, adding to diverse student body.
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The foundation has already been laid for North Shore Hebrew
Academy’s $50 million, 11.5-acre state-of-the-art high school, and
the yeshiva’s leaders are confident they can raise the remaining
$10 million because of the interest being generated by the new building.
“All of the kids always had to travel to their respective yeshivas,”
said the school’s headmaster, Daniel Vitow, noting the lack of such
an institution on the North Shore in recent memory. “Now that we
have outgrown our temporary facility, there’s clearly a very significant
need” for the new building.
The school is being erected along the south service road of the Long Island
Expressway just east of Lakeville Road in Great Neck. The property will
include baseball and soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts, open
stretches of lawn for classes to be held outdoors and terraces. A groundbreaking
was held in June.
“It’s a very beautiful setting,” said Vitow. “We want
to try and reduce the type of stress that can come with a yeshiva education.
We try to give the kids a setting that is conducive to learning.”
Interest in the high school has surged since it opened in September 2001
— North Shore graduated its first class in June — in a temporary
building at 175 Community Drive in Great Neck. School leaders said that
interest has only increased as the date approaches for the new building’s
completion in September 2006. They cite the fact that enrollment has ballooned
from an initial 105 students to more than 300.
In early November, school officials launched an integrated, highly publicized
campaign to encourage community support for the school’s fund-raising
efforts. Ivan Kaufman, the school’s president, said $30 million has
been raised.
The bulk of the contributions came from an annual journal dinner, as well
as parlor meetings in 14 communities the school services. Applications
for admission have come from the South Shore, Queens, Brooklyn and Westchester,
even Stamford, Conn.
With a student body of 300, the school is now close to capacity. Vitow
said a prime reason for the interest is that people “really want
a very high quality, first-class yeshiva education, one where girls can
get the identical education as the boys.”
The high school’s new home is being designed to accommodate 400 students.
Vitow said that deciding which students to select from among all the applications
is a daunting task.
“We are going to choose primarily kids who are going to offer the
school an interesting climate,” he said. “We want kids who are
diversified — we want musicians, artists, great Talmudists, kids
who are interested in writing and culture and theater. We are looking
to put together a group of kids who are not clones of each other.
“The worst thing is to have 300 identical kids. I want an interesting
and diverse population because that’s what makes an interesting and
exciting school,” he said.
But Vitow insists that one essential denominator is “kids with good
character.”
“When you send your child to North Shore, you don’t have to
worry who you’re child is sitting next to, and for a parent that’s
very important,” he said. “We managed to put together a student
body that is very wholesome and very respectful. … If I spend 1 percent
of my time on discipline it’s a lot. For a high school principal
to say that is very rare.”
In addition to developing an aesthetically attractive school, the yeshiva
is also emphasizing its technological capabilities. The building will
be equipped with wireless technology, and each student will receive a
laptop computer for use in Judaic and secular studies. Each student and
faculty member also will receive training on the operation of the laptops.
“In order to be with the times, we need to use technology of the
times, and we are very much involved in that,” said Vitow, who came
to North Shore three years ago after serving 16 years as principal of
the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway.
Some might fear that the technologically modern school might draw students
away from their current yeshivas, but Vitow insists his school is only
aiding in the advancement of yeshiva education.
“There are so many kids and so many yeshivas that kids have a real
choice,” he explained. “It’s great for the kids and great
for the schools. Students have an opportunity to find a school that’s
right for him or her. It’s like the choices a student would have
with finding the right college.” |
