Dr. Chaim Y. Botwinick
What should our yeshiva/day students know, understand and learn by the time they graduate (knowledge)? And, what are the school’s expectations regarding their student’s attitudes and behaviors when they graduate?
These are just several of the critical deep-dive questions and challenges our yeshiva and day school leaders must ask themselves as they continue to address the viability, success and impact of their respective schools.
When guiding or coaching graduate students, faculty or senior administrators about a school’s mission and vision statements or the value and intricacies of school-based strategic planning, I usually begin my sessions by stating “if you wake up in the morning, get into your car, and are not really certain where you are going, chances are, you won’t get there.”
In Lewis Carroll’s popular classic Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks Cheshire the Cat which way she should go? The cat in turn replies by asking her where you would like to go. When Alice admits that she “doesn’t really care where she is going”, the cat’s response was, “then it doesn’t really matter which way you go.”
Friends, although this example is relatively logical and simple to understand, many of our schools may not always have a clear sense as to where they are heading, or their desired outcome or direction – literally and figuratively.
For some, knowing which direction a school is pursuing may require a friendly reminder; for others, it may take the retracing of prior steps or events; and yet for others, it requires a long and arduous recollection process which can at times be challenging and difficult.
So how do these examples relate to the substance of this topic?
Today, there are a growing number of yeshiva day schools that make concerted efforts to ensure that their students and their families (current and prospective) have a clear sense regarding the school’s educational goals and objectives, direction, hashkafa, philosophy and desired outcomes for their students.
This suggests that for these schools to thrive and grow in today’s competitive academic environment, they must learn to develop and offer their stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, community) a series of clear, focused, realistic and specific curricular goals, objectives and outcomes. In other words, they must be able to respond to the challenging question – by the time a student graduate’s twelfth grade from that particular yeshiva or day school, what are the minimum skill sets, competencies, and subject areas that students are expected to master, exhibit, demonstrate or know?
These are called exactly what they suggest – Graduate Profiles.
In a yeshiva day school, I take thelibert of adding adding three additional attributes or characteristics to the list of competencies. They include: Jewish attitudes, Jewish involvement and Jewish behaviors.
It is interesting to note that there are a growing number of educational leaders (heads of school, principals, educational coordinators and directors) who suggest that these three additional attributes or characteristics may in fact be more essential for a student’s future growth, development and character than those anchored exclusively in academic requirements or outcomes.
From a Jewish communal, yeshiva and day school perspective, they are 100% on target. Having said that, these schools are nevertheless still responsible and obligated to provide their students with the full array of high quality academic competencies (in chol and kodesh) in order to help them grow, thrive and develop into well rounded members of our Jewish community and society.
The challenge here is how, with what resources and finally, the age old challenge of who is responsible to whom for what in our yeshivot and Jewish day schools.
Designing and Creating Graduate Profiles:
As indicated, Graduate Profiles help define, guide and redefine success in our schools through a careful and deliberate alignment of skills, habits, attributes and knowledge students require to succeed in post high school environments, college, in their careers and throughout life.
These “profiles” prioritize mastery and personalization, and help clarify what schools want their students to know, exhibit and master. As such, they can be referred through different names and forms – including a portrait of a graduate, a vision for a graduate; learning goals, or profiles of learners.
There are at least five steps to developing effective and meaningful Graduate Profiles.
First and foremost, they require that the yeshiva or day school fully understands and appreciate the purpose, value and concept of graduate profiling; second, schools must align their profiles with the philosophy, hashkafa, mission and vision of the school; third, in their development and formulation, they must involve and engage all school and communal stakeholders; four, they must be beta tested and validated in order to ensure that the profiles are measurable and realistic, and five, that they are totally aligned with the school’s curriculum and desired outcomes for its students.
It is important to note that true graduate profiles prevent schools from flying by the seat of their pants as they ensure authenticity, transparency and above all accountability for what is being taught and how. They also ensure that our schools are in line with stakeholder requirements and expectations. No small task!
I recall seven years ago, I asked several principals and senior heads of school whether they use Graduate Profiles. Very few responded in the affirmative and virtually all made reference to a document in the back of a parent handbook that was developed years ago or to a page in the school’s promotional/ marketing material or website. Hard to believe? Not at all.
Unfortunately, unless a parent, teacher or board member inquires or requests to see the profiles or a member of the faculty requests to use it to align or realign a piece of curriculum, these profiles become static, remain dormant for years, and never see the light of day.
Moreover, unless day school and yeshiva leadership are actually required to revisit and review their Graduate Profiles, they by and large view the process as an arduous one which requires tremendous, focus, time, energy and engagement – not unlike reviewing accreditation commitments and requirements. Schools by and large reference or refer to them, only if they must.
Tangentially, I recently heard about a yeshiva day school that actually used Graduate Profiles in order to assess the performance of their head of school.
I am not at all suggesting that schools go through such a lengthy and stressful professional review process in order to evaluate or assess leadership performance. But, I do firmly believe that a frequent review of these profiles help keep our leadership and the school focused, on task and in good stead.
The challenge of why schools create graduate profiles, is based on the aforementioned, and should be somewhat obvious. The challenge still remains, how are they designed and developed.
Most Graduate Profiles are mirror images of the school’s curriculum and are aligned with the educational mission, vision, philosophy and hashkafa of the school.
This reality therefore suggests and may even demand that the determination of a school’s curriculum take place prior to developing the profiles. There is also a strong school of thought (excuse the pun) suggesting that graduate profiles are first developed and only then can we credibly build a curriculum that is aligned with the profiles.
This “chicken and egg” conversation is a serious one. It is not semantic. In fact, most will opine that it is a combination of the two.
As an example if a new school is in the process of being founded or created, it is very natural for the school’s leadership and founders to first determine the uniqueness of the school via the identification of graduate outcomes or profiles – namely, they decide a priori why the school’s curriculum is unique to their institution and community based upon desire outcomes.
Having said that, it is essential that yeshiva day schools define, redefine and refine their curricular objectives on an ongoing basis. This happens by first having an open, frank, transparent and honest strategic planning conversation with the school founders and stakeholders regarding the goals of the school, and why/how they are either specific or unique to the new school.
In cases where the school, already exists, it is incumbent upon the school’s professional and lay leadership to ensure a review of the school’s graduate profiles at least once every two years.
The reasons for this frequency should be relatively obvious. It keeps the school’s curriculum development and implementation on track, it helps inform teachers and the administration what they should be teaching (not how) and they empower or enable the school’s stakeholders to reboot or reset the school’s goals and make the necessary changes and adjustments, based upon, demographic changes, senior leadership transitions, and emerging student population requirements and unmet needs.
Doing a Fair to Good Job is No Longer Good Enough. Our Yeshiva Day Schools Must Strive for Excellence in Student Achievement, Student Attitudes and Behaviors (Middot).
So, where do we go from here?
At the end of the day, our Jewish day schools and yeshivot will not be evaluated, assessed or judged solely based upon their glossy brochures, catchy taglines or impressive promo videos; but rather by their ability, capacity, bandwidth and leadership which maintains true transparency and accountability and a clear articulation of desired outcomes for their students.
The beauty here is that in 2025/26, our parents have the good fortune to pick and choose the yeshiva and day school with the best fit for their children.
One has only to review a school’s Graduate Profile in order to determine whether these profiles are realistic and true to form or are they only aspirational in order to help parents make that critically important decision.
It is also imperative that parents ask the right questions on the granular level and become keen observers of those students who are either currently enrolled in the school or recently graduated.
Bottom line – to parents, please do your homework; to school professional leadership, be true to what you are truly offering your students and please be certain that your expectations and outcomes are clear, measurable and are totally aligned with your institution’s curriculum and values.
No school is perfect, but that does not suggest that they cannot strive to be the best that they can be.
Let’s ensure that at the end of the day, our yeshiva day schools try their best to offer our students the most impactful and meaningful academic curriculum possible in both limudei kodesh and chol; and that our students are taught and exposed to the rich array of middot tovot, derech eretz, yirat shomayim.
Remember, we only have these students in our schools for a limited period of time. Let’s not squander these opportunities.
We owe it to our students, their parents and to our community.
B’hatzlacha to all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Chaim Botwinick is a senior executive coach and an organizational consultant. He served as president and CEO of the central agency for Jewish education in Baltimore and in Miami; in addition to head of school and principal for several Jewish day schools and yeshivot. As an Influencer, he has published and lectured extensively on topics relating to education, resource development, strategic planning and leadership development. Dr. Botwinick is co-founder of LEV Consulting Associates and is producer/host of the Chinuch Horizons podcast series. He is Author of “Think Excellence: Harnessing Your Power to Succeed beyond Greatness”, Brown Books, 2011
