1
A JEWISH DAY SCHOOL SURFING THE EDGE:
AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY
A Doctoral Thesis presented by Sharon Pollin
to The School of Education
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
In the field of
Education
College of Professional Studies
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts February 2017
2
Abstract
A thriving Jewish day school is a vital cornerstone of a flourishing Jewish community.
Particularly in communities with small Jewish populations, Jewish day schools are able to play roles that extend beyond the lives of their own student body, and they often serve as a hub for community connection and engagement. In July 2013, with a student enrollment of 27, a nationally recognized day school feasibility expert recommended that the Community Day
School of New Orleans close its doors. The research problem I intend to study is my experience as leader of the K–5 (renamed) Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans, as it endeavors to achieve viability and strength. Although many recent studies focus on the sustainability of Jewish day schools, there is a gap in the literature about the journey of a school poised at the edge of the wave between viability and impossibility. This autoethnographic account of my experience will contribute to the growing body of scholarly literature on Jewish day school sustainability. Complexity leadership theory serves as the theoretical framework for this research project.
Keywords: Complexity leadership theory, autoethnography, Jewish day school sustainability,
New Orleans
3
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Rabbi Dr. Karen Reiss Medwed for the persistence of her support and guidance as my professor at Hebrew College and as my doctoral advisor at Northeastern
University. Her encouragement made it possible for me to continue this work despite the many disruptions in my life, and I am deeply grateful. I would also like to thank my second reader, Dr.
Billye Sankofa, for taking the time to deeply peruse my work and suggesting that I read the book,
Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resistance, by Robin M. Boylorn. Dr. Boylorn’s intimate ethnographic writing helped open the window for personal vulnerability in my own. I wish to express my appreciation to Rabbi Dr. Shira Leibowitz for taking the time to serve as my third reader, and Gail Naron Chalew for her generous offer to edit this work; her attention to detail has served to enhance this thesis, and any remaining errors are entirely my own. I thank as well the members of my Hebrew College cohort for their support and for teaching me, a digital immigrant, how to tweet.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge and thank the warm, gracious, and tenacious members of the extraordinary Jewish community of Greater New Orleans for sharing their stories with me and for working together with me in support of the treasure that is Jewish Community Day
School.
Dedication 4
To my father, whose life exemplifies generosity, wisdom, and grit. To my children, who daily inspire me to be my best self, and without whom my life would be incomplete. Finally, to the many and diverse members of my beautiful family, each a complex adaptive system in his or her own right.
5
Table of Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………… 2
Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………3
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………… 3
Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………. 5
Chapter One: Introduction ………………………………………………………………………...8
Statement of the Problem…….……………………………………………………………………8
Research Problem……………………………………………………………………………… 8
Justification of the Research Problem…………………………………………………………..9
Deficiencies in the Evidence…………………………………………………………………..11
Relating the Discussion to Audiences…………………………………………………………11
Significance of the Research Problem………………………………………………………... 12
Positionality…………………………………………………………………………………... 13
Research Central Question…………………………………………………………………….15
Theoretical Framework: Complexity Leadership Theory……………………………………..16
Chapter Two: Literature Review………………………………………………………………... 16
Overview of Proposed Study…………………………………………………………………. 16
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 17
Jewish Day Schools in the United States……………………………………………………... 19
Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans……………………………………. 20
Complexity Leadership Theory………………………………………………………………. 27 6
Examining the Evidence……………………………………………………………………… 29
Complexity Leadership Theory and Schools…………………………………………………. 32
Complexity Leadership: Theory into Practice………………………………………………... 33
Limitations……………………………………………………………………………………. 34
Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………… 36
Chapter Three: Research Design………………………………………………………………... 36
Methodology………………………………………………………………………………….. 36
Reflections on Autoethnography as Research Methodology…………………………………. 38
Data Collection……………………………………………………………………………….. 40
Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………. 41
Trustworthiness………………………………………………………………………………. 41
Protection of Human Subjects………………………………………………………………... 42
Chapter Four: Report of Research Findings…………………………………………………….. 43
A View from the Balcony: Jewish New Orleans……………………………………………... 43
Modern Infrastructure………………………………………………………………………… 46
Financial Snapshot 2006–2013……………………………………………………………….. 48
Agents of Change: Year One…………………………………………………………………. 58
Findings………………………………………………………………………………………. 73
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………. 78
Chapter Five: Discussion of Research Findings………………………………………………… 79
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………… 79
Research Questions…………………………………………………………………………… 80 7
Autoethnography as Methodology: Three Vignettes…………………………………………. 81
Complexity Leadership Theory Revisited……………………………………………………. 90
Vignettes: Viewed Through the Lens of Complexity………………………………………… 92
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………... 102
APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………………. 104
Appendix A………………………………………………………………………………….. 104
Appendix B………………………………………………………………………………….. 105
Appendix C………………………………………………………………………………….. 109
Appendix D………………………………………………………………………………… 113
References……………………………………………………………………………………… 115
Figures and Tables
Table 1. JCDS Enrollment, Tuition, and Contribution Income, 2001–2014…………………... 49
Figure 1. Logos of NOJCS (2005), CDS (2012), and JCDS (2014)…………………………….64
Figure 2. Selected Portraits of Community Leaders from the JCDS “We Believe” Marketing
Campaign……………………………………………………………………………………..….65
Figure 3. An Ever-Expanding Frame of CAS Agents……………………………………………78
Figure 4. Jewish Community Day School as a Complex Adaptive System……………………..94
8
Chapter One: Introduction
Statement of the Problem
The New Orleans Jewish Day School welcomed 86 students in grades K–8 to a new school year on August 15, 2005. Two weeks later, on August 29, the flooding activated by
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding area. Families evacuated the city, and most remained where they had landed, enrolling their children in schools that were open and ready to receive them. Twenty percent of the evacuees stayed away from New Orleans for the long term.
The school was not spared the devastating damage wrought by Katrina. Drenched materials, destroyed equipment, staggering amounts of muck, and blooming colonies of mold shuttered the school for twelve months of repairs. In August 2006, the New Orleans Jewish Day
School reopened with an enrollment that had tumbled from its pre-Katrina high of 86 in May
2005 in nine grades to 22 students in kindergarten through grade three. Supported by national funds and the determined work of local leaders, the school slowly rebuilt, its enrollment reaching
51 students in grades kindergarten through five by August 2010. In July 2013, enrollment had dipped to 27. Two months later, a nationally recognized day school feasibility expert recommended that the school close its doors. What follows is an autoethnographic account of my experience as leader of this school.
Research Problem
In the summer of 2013, the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans initiated a feasibility study designed to ascertain Community Day School’s potential as a sustainable community institution; its findings would guide future investment by the Jewish community in 9 its community Jewish day school. The impetus for the study was the recent change in school population and demographics. Enrollment had risen steadily for 3 years following the traumas of
Hurricane Katrina, largely supported by very generous tuition subsidies made possible through post-Katrina grants from national Jewish organizations. Suddenly, within a two-year period, enrollment numbers plummeted by 48%, from an enrollment of 51 in 2011–2012 to just 27 for
2013–2014: The majority of Jewish families who had been committed to the school had withdrawn. Against the wishes and advice of Jewish community stakeholders and RAVSAK:
The Jewish Community Day School Network, the name of the school was changed to
Community Day School, the word “Jewish” eliminated from its title. Voucher and non-Jewish students were courted and enrolled. By the time I arrived as the new Head of School in July
2013, non-Jewish students outnumbered Jewish students, 55% compared to 45%. Two months later came the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, the day our liturgy asks, “Who will live, and who will die?” It was at this existentially fragile moment that the school’s sustainability committee was advised by its consultant to spend the current academic year winding down, in preparation for shutting its doors. She believed that the problems of Community Day School were too deep and too comprehensive to overcome. The sustainability committee, however, rejected this recommendation. The group vowed to access every possible resource to reposition the school toward sustainability and a successful future and to overcome the obstacles that blocked the realization of this goal. The research problem is my experience as leader of the
Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans during this precarious time.
Justification of the Research Problem
A thriving Jewish day school is a cornerstone of a flourishing Jewish community. It adds value to the lives of its alumni, to the community of which it is a part, and to the larger Jewish 10 community for years to come (Chertok, Kedushin, Koren, & Wright, 2007; Cohen & Kotler-
Berkowitz, 2004; Fishman & Goldstein, 1993; Kelner, 2008; Lipset, 1994; Rimor & Katz, 1993;
Wertheimer, Benor, & Chai, 2010). Particularly in communities with small Jewish populations,
Jewish day schools are able to play roles that go beyond the lives of their own student body, often serving as a hub for community connection and engagement (Pomson, 2007). Despite these benefits, during the past decade many Jewish communities have witnessed the closure of their non-Orthodox day schools (Schick, 2003, 2008, 2012; Schwartz, 2013).
The New Orleans Jewish community founded a pluralistic Jewish community day school in 1995 that in 10 years grew to an enrollment of 86 students in grades kindergarten through eight. When Hurricane Katrina struck, the school sustained damage to such an extent that its closure was required for a year to clean and make repairs before children could return.
Recognizing the communal importance of the day school, the New Orleans Jewish community commenced rebuilding, dedicating more than $2 million over a 5-year period to Jewish day school education (Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, 2007). The school reopened its doors in 2006 to 22 students in grades kindergarten through three, and enrollment steadily grew to 51 students in grades pre-K–5 by the fall of 2011. Yet, by fall 2013, enrollment had dwindled to 27 children, and there was no longer a pre-kindergarten or a fifth grade. A study of its feasibility called for the school to close. Rather than do so, a small group of community leaders undertook to save the school. There have been much research and thought given to Jewish day school sustainability, but the journey of an individual school leader mandated to guide a school from an existentially precarious position forward to stability has not yet been investigated.
11
Deficiencies in the Evidence
Recent studies on the sustainability of Jewish day schools abound (Arnoff, 2011; Cohen,
2013; Cohen & Perla, 2013; Elkin, 2010; Hirsh, 2011; Prager, 2010). Unfortunately, these analyses are very relevant because, over the past 4 years, a number of Jewish day schools have struggled to survive, and several have closed (Schick, 2014). Although one may find first-person accounts of parents’ reactions and anecdotal evidence of community discussions, as yet there has been no scholarly exploration or documentation of this difficult situation. Providing a window into the experience of the leader of one such school will enable other school leaders and their communities to attain a better understanding of the elements in play in their own sustainability endeavors. As the unique agents of a single day school are examined, their relationships explored, their actions illuminated, and their experiences described, other day schools and the communities of which they are a part are afforded the opportunity to reflect on and better analyze the myriad components that together comprise a Jewish day school. By offering insight into the lived experiences of the head of one Jewish community day school, and shedding light on the resources and commitments invested by a single community to sustain this critical Jewish education option, this study will deepen the understanding of Jewish day school education stakeholders.
Relating the Discussion to Audiences
All Jewish day schools, by their very nature, function within variable social, cultural, and institutional contexts, but they do share common challenges: a scarcity of qualified personnel; the shortage of seasoned lay leaders to guide, raise funds, and share personal talents and skills to benefit the school; the never-ending task of recruitment and enrollment of tuition-paying 12 students; the need to maintain positive relationships throughout the community; and the requirement to raise funds to support and sustain the school (Elkins, 2000). Each Jewish day school comprises myriad connected elements, including teachers, staff, administrators, board members, students, parents, alumni, community members, and the environment of which it is a part. Providing a lens into the crisis point and subsequent journey of one Jewish day school leader’s lived experience offers other such schools the opportunity to reflect on, analyze, and chart their own course as compared to that of the Jewish Community Day School of Greater New
Orleans.
Significance of the Research Problem
Advised in the summer of 2013 by its consultant to spend the coming school year preparing to permanently close, the feasibility committee of the then-Community Day School of
Greater New Orleans rejected the recommendation. Such a situation is not unknown in the
Jewish day school domain: The problem of sustainability is intrinsic to the Jewish day school landscape (PEJE, 2014). In recent years a number of non-Orthodox Jewish day schools have struggled for their survival, and several have closed altogether (Schick, 2014). A group of dedicated New Orleans lay leaders vowed to overcome all obstacles to keep their Jewish community day school open and viable. They made the commitment to access every possible resource to reposition the school toward long-term sustainability.
Much attention has been given to the sustainability of Jewish day schools (Arnoff, 2011;
Cohen, 2013; Cohen & Perla, 2013; Elkin, 2010; Held, 2014; Hirsh, 2011; Prager, 2010;
Schwarz, 2008). However, there have been no scholarly reflective accounts of one Jewish day school leader’s journey from crises toward sustainability. One may find first-person accounts of 13 parents’ reactions as well as anecdotal evidence of community discussions; as yet, however, there has been no academic exploration or documentation of this challenging contemporary issue. The study of my own experience as leader of a Jewish day school, on its journey from crises toward survival, is designed to provide readers with the opportunity to compare their own experiences, possibilities, and choices with my own. By delving into the experience of this researcher, readers will be able to contextualize and extend their understanding of this topic
(Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Although nothing may compare to the learning that happens via direct experience, people do learn from the experiences of others (Gino, Argote, Miron-Spektor, &
Todorova, 2010).
Positionality
“Qualitative researchers approach their studies with a certain world view that guides their
inquiries.” (Creswell, 1998, p. 74)
All research is arguably influenced by the positionality of the researcher, whether or not that position is explicitly revealed. To achieve the aim of completing an objective study, the majority of qualitative research methodologies call for the researcher to attempt to detach from the processes of the research. Phenomenology recommends bracketing, whereas traditional ethnography encourages the researcher to be a nonparticipant observer (Creswell, 2013). In contrast, autoethnography—the qualitative research method I employ in my study—explicitly makes use of the researcher in relationship with all aspects of the research environment (Chang,
2008; Ngunjiri, 2014). Recognizing that my own experiences and perspectives have guided both my journey to this point and my current work as head of the Jewish Community Day School of
Greater New Orleans—and thus influence all aspects of this study—I share my “self” story as it 14 relates to the social context and subject of my research (Brogden, 2010; Ellis, 2004; Mosselson,
2010; Salzman, 2002).
I was raised in a home that valued and modeled Jewish living. My siblings and I attended twice-weekly supplemental Hebrew school and religious school on Sundays. We shared Shabbat candle lighting and dinners each week and frequently attended synagogue services. Our father served two terms as president of our local Jewish Education Association before becoming president of the Jewish Federation, again serving a lengthier term than most. In addition to the modeling I received at home, I was encouraged to embrace my own Jewish identity. I was the first girl in my temple to read Torah to become a bat mitzvah on a Shabbat morning. I helped our cantor teach bar and bat mitzvah lessons, and I had the privilege of attending Camp Swig, the
Reform movement’s West Coast summer camp, in the 1970s, a time of passion and exploration.
My mentors included the ground-breaking and inspirational Jewish song leader and composer,
Debbie Friedman, z’l, and Michael Zeldin, a highly respected Jewish education innovator. These early experiences deeply touched me and solidified my connections to Jewish life and living in profound ways. Although marginal throughout my college years, when I became a public schoolteacher my connections to Judaism resurfaced.
I began my classroom teaching career in a rural one-school district outside of Portland,
Oregon. Most of the students and parents in the school had never interacted with a Jewish person until they met me. I experienced strong pressure to celebrate the Christmas and Easter holidays in my classroom with my students. I felt unable to bring my whole self, my holistic self, to my work, and this troubled me. I had heard about a new type of school that had recently begun in
Seattle, a Jewish community day school, and made the 3-hour drive north to visit. I fell in love with that school. I saw an example of educational excellence integrated with meaningful Jewish 15 learning. I moved to Seattle the following year to teach both general and Jewish studies there and have been immersed in the Jewish community day school world ever since. I have been a teacher and administrator of Jewish studies and general studies, a curriculum coordinator, and a leader of teacher development. I am the mother of three Jewish community day school alumni and passionately believe in the benefits and far-reaching potential of Jewish community day school education.
One who undertakes to complete a doctoral dissertation must be acutely interested in the topic (Fraenkel, Wallen & Hyun, 2012). Particularly in autoethnography, the self is considered a
“main character,” because a particular life experience is studied in relationship to its social context (Chang, 2008). My dissertation topic—my experience as the head of a Jewish community day school as it “surfs the edge of chaos” (Pascale, Millemann, & Gioja, 2000, p.10)—positions me to be visible within the frame of my research text (Lincoln & Denzin,
2000).
Research Central Question
In his book The Education Dissertation: A Guide for Practical Scholars (2009), Butin discusses the value of framing the research question as a catalyst to further research, whereas
Bochner (2001) encourages autoethnographic researchers to use research as an opportunity to
“extract meaning from the experience, rather than to depict experience exactly as it was lived”
(p. 270). My own experience serves as a bridge between myself as protagonist and the numerous others, or agents, that are also a part of the story (Adams, Jones, & Ellis, 2015); I do not merely share my story but define its meaning. The central question of this study is as follows: What is the lived experience of the leader of a school on the edge of chaos? 16
Theoretical Framework: Complexity Leadership Theory
“I am what is around me’ (“Theory,” a poem by Wallace Stevens, 1917)
Complexity leadership theory frames organizations as nonlinear, uncertain, dynamic, and relationship based (Crowell, 2011). In contrast, traditional models of leadership were designed to accommodate hierarchical organizational structures, focusing primarily on the dynamic between the leader and follower or group of followers; for example, the “Great Man” theory (Northouse,
2010), behavioral leadership models (Manning & Curtis, 2003), and the situational leadership model (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2011). In these models, the role of “leader” is to hand down directives from a lordly height, often via directives to middle managers who then pass them on to workers (Dunlap & Smith, 1991). Although these leadership models may have been appropriate into the industrial age of the 20th century, they are less effective in the dynamic configurations of our current knowledge-driven era (Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007).
Chapter Two: Literature Review
Overview of Proposed Study
This autoethnographic study explores my journey as leader of the Jewish Community
Day School of Greater New Orleans while the school community endeavored to change its
precarious position from balancing on the abyss of impending closure to moving toward
feasibility and sustainability.
The central question of this study is: What is the lived experience of the leader of a
school on the edge of chaos? 17
Subquestion: How does the lens of complex adaptive leadership influence leadership
thinking?
This literature review presents informative research related to the role of Jewish day schools in the United States, details the context of the unique position of the Jewish Community
Day School of Greater New Orleans, and discusses the concept of leadership through the lens of complex adaptive leadership theory.
Introduction
Judaism, beginning with its very first texts, has consistently placed central value on
teaching and learning. “Teach them diligently to your children” is the biblical imperative of
Deuteronomy 6:4. In Proverbs 1:8, we hear, “Listen, my child, to the guidance of your father,
and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.” American Jewish communities have been
guided for nearly 100 years by the efforts of a dedicated group of Jewish education leaders who,
at the outset of the 20th century, established the overarching goals for Jewish education in this
country. They articulated several core purposes and principles. First, it is both possible and
desirable for Jews to affirm a dual identity as both Jews and Americans. Second, the goal of
Jewish education is to ensure Jewish cultural survival. The next aim addresses the value of
communal solidarity (c’lal Yisrael) and that an emerging national culture, rather than
denominational ideologies and religiosity, should serve as the basis for a broadly shared Jewish
curriculum. These leaders also believed that American public schooling and progressive
educational ideas provided the best model for organizing Jewish education, and, finally, that
Jewish education should be a communal responsibility (Krasner, 2011, as cited by Woocher,
2012). These aims were to be achieved through an array of Jewish education efforts that included
Jewish supplemental schools, Jewish summer camps, and Jewish day schools. 18
Today, each of these institutional types serves many young people in locations across the
United States, although the efficacy of each varies greatly. Supplemental schools, in which students meet on weekends or late afternoons when their public or private schools are not in session, enroll the largest number of students for the purposes of transmitting a Jewish education.
In the 2006–2007 school year, an estimated 230,000 students attended supplementary schools
(Wertheimer, 2008). The value of such an education in promoting substantial Jewish identity and engagement, or Jewish cultural survival and continuity (Woocher, 2013), has been long contested. Wertheimer (2008, p. 3) notes that the majority of supplemental school students attend such classes between grades four and seven, and more than one-third tend to drop out by age 14, after the bar or bat mitzvah year. It is reasonable to anticipate that, with so little time devoted to
Jewish education, positive outcomes that support Jewish vigor are less likely. In fact, according to one study, “Relative to those with no Jewish schooling, there are no consistent, positive impacts for in-marriage, ritual practices, and attitudes toward Israel associated with attendance at supplementary school for six years or less or at Sunday school for any number of years” (Cohen
& Kotler Berkowitz, 2004). Although there are some exciting innovations in supplemental
Jewish schooling taking place across the country, it may be many years before their influence is felt (Wertheimer, 2009).
A 2010 census of Jewish summer camps determined that 70,000 Jewish children were campers in these 24/7 Jewish environments (Cohen, Miller, Sheshkin, & Torr, 2011). Jewish summer camps enroll far fewer youngsters than Jewish supplemental schools, but due to their immersive environment, the immediacy of the community that is created, and the opportunity to
“live Judaism” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week away from home, they have the potential to deeply support the creation and sustenance of positive Jewish identity and engagement in their campers, 19
counselors, and staff (Saxe & Sales, 2002). In fact, as adults, 21% of Jewish campers are likely
to feel that “being Jewish is very important” (Cohen et al., 2011). Nevertheless, it is the Jewish
day school that provides the “secret sauce of success” (Kramer, 2012).
Jewish Day Schools in the United States
Today’s Jewish day schools are links in the centuries-old chain of Jewish educational tradition. They are characterized as full-day educational institutions offering general and Jewish curricula under one roof in an environment that provides education opportunities that join together cognitive and affective learning (Schiff, 1987 p. 5). Until relatively recently in the
United States, Jewish day schools were generally associated with the most rigorously observant segments of the American Jewish community and were centered in the New York area (Valley,
2002). Until the middle of the 20th century, the American Jewish community assumed that
Jewishness was something innate and thus no school was needed to inculcate Jewish identity
(Soloveitchik, 1994). In 1944, there were about 30 Jewish day schools with an enrollment of between 6,000 and 7,000 students in the entire United States; only 6 were outside of New York
City.
As American Jews became assimilated into the dominant culture, families were less able to fulfill their traditional roles as transmitters of Jewish heritage to their children, and day school enrollment increased steadily. In the 1970s, Jewish day school enrollment exceeded 67,000 students in 330 schools. By the year 2000, there were approximately 185,000 students in ideologically diversified Jewish day schools across the United States (Woocher, 2003). These included the Solomon Schechter schools of the Conservative movement, those affiliated with the
Reform movement, and Jewish community day schools, which are unaffiliated with a particular 20
Jewish movement or congregation. Jewish community day schools are often primarily supported by local Jewish Federations and other donors in their home communities. The most recent census, published by AVI CHAI (Schick, 2014), reveals that nearly 255,000 students are enrolled in 861 U.S. Jewish day schools.
As day school enrollment rose, many researchers focused on this question: “What is the impact of a Jewish day school education on Jewish identity formation and connection to Jewish living?” (Elkin & Kling, 2007). The majority of the research noted a positive link between
Jewish day school education and behaviors that would support the inculcation of Jewish identity, as evidenced by in-marriage and adult involvement in Jewish communal life (Cardin, 2007;
Cohen & Kotler-Berkowitz, 2004; Fishman & Goldstein, 1993; Lipset, 1994; Rimor & Katz,
1993). According to Schick, the many demographic studies that have been conducted in the past
25 years have concluded that a Jewish day school education is one of the prime predictors of
Jewish continuity (2014). One representative conclusion is “Jewish day schools are the gold standard in Jewish education. No other form of Jewish education provides the robust training in
Jewish values, imparts the level of knowledge, or instills the same level of Jewish commitment.
Nearly a quarter century of studies have time and again demonstrated the profound impact of a day school education on students’ Jewish knowledge and identity” (Held, 2014).
Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans
“The context within which leadership exists, both globally and locally, is the starting
point.” (Obolensky, 2014)
In August 1995, for the very first time, a small group of 5-year-olds walked through the doors of the New Orleans Jewish Day School, their parents smiling through tears of happiness 21 that this day had at last come to pass. This day was not only a milestone in their children’s lives but it also represented a landmark event in the life of the New Orleans Jewish community.
Supported by three diverse community leaders, a small group of dedicated parents had brought their school vision for their community to reality. It was a vision of welcome to all members of the Jewish community, of inspiring academics in a nurturing environment, and of Jewish values meaningfully brought to life for today’s world (see the Mission Statement in Appendix A). With the support of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and the Jewish Endowment
Foundation of Louisiana, the school added a grade each year for the next 10 years, growing to 86 students in grades kindergarten through eight. The initial kindergarten cohort graduated from eighth grade on May 29, 2005, corresponding to the 20th of the Hebrew month of Iyar. Senator
Joseph Lieberman served as the commencement ceremony’s honored speaker. The school gymnasium was festive and standing room only. With a population of only 9,500, the New
Orleans Jewish community had produced a solid Jewish day school and had much to celebrate.
The school had migrated from trailer classrooms to a campus it anchored and shared with the local Jewish Federation offices and a suburban satellite of the Jewish Community Center. No one in the New Orleans community would ever forget the collective joy and pride of the students, parents, faculty, and supporters on that day. Only three months later, on Sunday, August 28,
2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered the unprecedented evacuation of the city and surrounding areas in advance of the imminent arrival of Hurricane Katrina.
Situated on the Esplanade Avenue canal in Metairie, the New Orleans Jewish Day School began the 2005–2006 academic year on August 15, with an enrollment of 78 students. A recruitment open house had been scheduled for Tuesday, August 30, but never was held; Katrina 22 had wielded catastrophic damage just the day before. Eighty percent of the city flooded after the levees failed.
Hurricane Katrina profoundly disrupted every living creature that called New Orleans home. During the post-Katrina year, students and their families scattered in all directions.
Schools were closed, and 70% of New Orleans' occupied housing, 134,000 units, was damaged by the storm and subsequent flooding. The overall population of New Orleans fell from 484,674 in April 2000 to 230,172 in July 2006, a decrease of more than 40% (Data Center, U.S. Census
Bureau).
Just like everyone else in the area, the New Orleans Jewish community was profoundly
affected by Katrina: Jewish families evacuated to distant cities, homes and businesses were lost,
and friends were displaced. The Jewish population dropped from 9,500 to 6,000 in a matter of
days. According to Jewish Federation sources, approximately 80% of the Jews’ homes and
businesses in the area suffered storm damage. In one harrowing example of the storm’s impact,
the incoming president of the Jewish Federation spent four days in his attic before exiting
through a window and swimming to safety. The first floor of the beautiful New Orleans Jewish
Community Day School was not spared: It was covered with debris, contaminated water, and
muck. The extensive damage caused by the water’s encroachment required the school to close
for a year, during which time vital repairs were made and furnishings replaced. The new Head of
School, who had been hired only a month before the storm, evacuated the city, never to return.
In the spring of 2006, Jewish Federation leadership met to initiate a strategic effort that would guide the Jewish community’s rebuilding process for the next five to ten years. From the 23 task force of more than 120 community members, 12 themes emerged (see Appendix B). One in particular would have direct impact on the New Orleans Jewish Day School (NOJDS):
Jewish education is a vital component of the community. Education is central to Jewish
culture and identity. In order to attract new Jewish families and maintain a vibrant Jewish
community, it is imperative that there is strong Jewish day school education and
opportunities for a thorough Jewish education for children as well as adults (Jewish
Federation of Greater New Orleans, 2008).
The need to repopulate the Jewish community was another important theme. To address this, the Newcomer’s Project, an innovative initiative designed to attract Jewish individuals and families to New Orleans, was launched. Conceived largely by Michael J. Weil, executive director of the Jewish Federation, the program was inspired by the sal klita, the "absorption benefits basket," offered to Israeli newcomers. With an ad campaign crafted by an Israeli public relations firm, the city's Jewish leaders hoped to attract at least 1,000 Jews to the city over the next 5 years. It generated national interest in the Jewish media; for example, in July, 2007, a headline in the New York Jewish Week read, “'Do you have a pioneering spirit? Are you searching for a meaningful community where YOU can make a difference?" The campaign stressed the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, Hebrew for "healing the world," or, in this case, healing a broken city.
Newcomers were eligible for up to $5,500 for moving and housing expenses, interest-free loans of up to $30,000, half-price tuition at the New Orleans Jewish Day School, and a year of free membership at any synagogue and at the Jewish Community Center. More than 1,000 New
Orleans Jewish newcomers benefited from the program over the next 5 years. 24
Genevieve Smith had retired as the head of the New Orleans Jewish Community Day
School (NOJDS) in May 2005, just after the graduation of its first eighth-grade class. She had served in that capacity for four years. Her successor had been hired for the 2005–2006 year, but she evacuated with the storm, never to return. The school’s board of directors contacted Smith in
March 2006, and that capable, generous woman agreed to return to her post to help the school rebuild. Along with Admissions Director Liz Miller, and Librarian Julie Shapiro, the three women spent the next months working from the undamaged second-floor library, searching out the locations of students and families and overseeing the restoration of the first-floor classrooms and cafeteria. The school reopened in August 2006, with grades kindergarten through three and an enrollment of 22 students. Under Smith’s guidance, by May 2008 the school’s enrollment had increased slightly, to 24 students in grades kindergarten through four.
Dr. Paul Marshall arrived in New Orleans with his two young sons in the summer of 2008.
His wife, Rabbi Tamara Marshall, was to be the new spiritual leader—and the first female rabbi—of a historic New Orleans Reform congregation. Dr. Marshall had received his PhD in
Educational Leadership and Policy from Vanderbilt University in 2003. Writing his dissertation on how to reduce the achievement gap between black and white students in Title I schools,
Marshall was focused on and passionately committed to meeting the needs of diverse groups that comprise a school community. He taught for four years in alternative and/or high-poverty and earned his M.Ed. in Secondary School Administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati.
Marshall had just completed a successful period as head of a Jewish day school in a Southern city. A plan was put in place for Marshall to spend a year as Associate Head of School under
Smith, and then become head of the school in July 2009. 25
The New Orleans Jewish Day School began the 2009–2010 academic year with a student enrollment of 47 in grades pre-K through five. Eighty percent of its students were Jewish.
Enrollment for the next school year was 50, and reached a high of 51 in 2011–2012. However, in
2013–-2014, enrollment plummeted to 38, and the school doors opened for 2013–2014 with only
27 students. The school’s pre-K program, which was established in 2008 as a natural feeder to higher grades, was closed at the end of 2012. Although the closure was justified as a means to cement community goodwill—a nearby Reform congregation ran a nursery school—this action was not broadly supported by the school community and the decision was a source of contention.
Several Jewish families withdrew from the school because of it; their disgruntled feelings were a forerunner of what was to come.
In the face of decreasing enrollment, Marshall began to promote a plan to “become a
Jewish school that also serves the greater New Orleans community.” In other words, he recommended that the school expand to serve non-Jewish students, saying, “We also feel this could be a great option for non-Jewish students in the community who otherwise would be looking for a good education.” He was convinced the move would help the school make “greater inroads” into the Reform, unaffiliated, and intermarried communities. NOJDS received a
$65,000 loan from the Jewish Federation and the Jewish Endowment Foundation to fund a rebranding and marketing plan to publicize the new approach. In October 2012, the name of the
New Orleans Jewish Day School was changed to Community Day School (CDS). With hundreds of newly printed folders, packets, view books, business cards, and letterhead stationery displayed, a ceremony to celebrate the school’s new name took place on a rainy Sukkot afternoon. Few attended the event, and not even the entire board was present. The mood, according to those who were there, was decidedly gloomy. Enrollment for the coming year was 26
opened to students eligible for the Louisiana Scholarship Program, a state assistance program
that enables students entering kindergarten or currently enrolled in a public school with a C, D,
or F grade, and whose family income does not exceed 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, to
enroll in state-approved private schools. Non-Jewish students with the ability to pay tuition were
systematically recruited to the school. Two months after receiving official recognition of the new
moniker by the Secretary of State, in December 2012, and with a student population of 36 in
grades kindergarten through five, Dr. Marshall stunned the CDS leadership by submitting his
letter of resignation. He announced that he would no longer be Head of School as of July 1,
2013. In fact, Marshall would leave the school at the beginning of June, using his accrued days
off for this purpose. As he advised the faculty of his decision, he told each teacher that no job
was secure and that he or she would be wise to look for other opportunities. Several took this
advice and secured employment in Jewish day schools in other states. His resignation was
reported in an online Jewish newsletter:
Community Day School head Paul Marshall surprised his faculty, board of directors,
students and parents with a letter announcing his intent to step down from his position
when his current contract ends in June. Marshall, under whose leadership the recent name
change from New Orleans Jewish Day School and branding to Community Day School
was implemented, indicated he had reluctantly made this decision because of his desire to
work in the public sector (Crescent City Jewish News, 2013).
Deirdre Rose, then president of CDS, released a letter in which she reluctantly accepted
Marshall’s decision and announced the appointment of former NOJDS president, Hugo Kahn, as chair of the search committee for a new head of school. Anticipating that CDS would soon close, 27
Dr. Marshall recommended to the board that the guidance counselor function as principal and the Jewish studies teacher lead the Judaic program for the school’s coming, final, year.
In fact, the Community Day School board rejected Dr. Marshall’s advice. It advertised for a new Head of School, and following discussions and meetings that are detailed in a subsequent chapter, my contract to lead the school was finalized in May 2013. I arrived in New Orleans on
July 15 to take on the challenges facing the school. At about the same time, two experts were hired to determine its viability. One would focus on the demographic potential for new students in and around New Orleans, and the other would research issues of stability and governance.
Funding for these endeavors once again came via the generosity of the New Orleans Jewish
Federation and the Jewish Endowment Foundation. The New Orleans Jewish community was not quite ready to give up on its Jewish community day school.
Complexity Leadership Theory
“Complexity Leadership Theory will add a view of leadership as an emergent, interactive
dynamic that is productive of adaptive outcomes.” (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007)
Complexity leadership theory frames organizations as nonlinear, uncertain, dynamic, and relationship based, an organizing framework situated between the chaos of anarchy and the hierarchical authority of the oligarch (Crowell, 2011; Obolensky, 2014). Traditional models of leadership are designed to accommodate ordered organizational structures and focus on the relationship between the leader and follower or group of followers. Examples of such models include the “Great Man” theory of Northouse, which suggests that “certain individuals have special innate or inborn characteristics or qualities that differentiates them from non-leaders”
(Northouse, 2010, p. 4); the behavioral leadership models of Manning and Curtis (2012), who 28 assert that there are three types of historically influential leaders—rulers, teachers, and heroes; and the situational leadership model of Slocum and Hellriegel (2011), which posits that the style of leadership should perfectly incorporate the intensity of readiness displayed by followers.
These models apply to the industrial age of the previous century, but are less effective in understanding the dynamic configurations of our current knowledge-driven era (Uhl-Bien et al.,
2007). Complex adaptive systems function on the edge of chaos—that point between linear predictability and complete chaos—at which a system is at its most creative, imaginative, and adaptable (Morrison, 2010; Waldrop, 1992).
Derived from the physical sciences and guided by concepts introduced by Margaret
Wheatley, who in 1994 called for systems characterized by free-flowing information, individual empowerment, relationship networks, and organizational change that evolves organically, complexity leadership theory envisions leadership not as a hierarchical order of control but rather as an “emergent order that arises in the combinations of many individual actions… and acknowledges the deep relationships between individual activity and the whole” (Wheatley,
2006). Organizations viewed through the lens of complexity leadership theory are responsive, adaptive, organic manifestations that emerge based on feedback from the system itself (Plowman
& Duchon, 2008). One of the key concepts of the theory is that changeable organizations are those in which feedback dynamics preserve disequilibrium, rather than aim for the traditional comfort state of equilibrium (Stacey 1995).
Feedback dynamics, or loops, provide both negative and positive responses to a particular organizational system and, through the lens of complexity leadership theory, offer complex adaptive systems opportunities for effective adaptation. Many natural systems, including the human brain, the weather, immune systems, developing embryos, and even ant colonies, may be 29 characterized as complex adaptive systems (CASs). Each CAS is made up of a network of many agents acting in parallel; the nature of the agents varies based on the type of CAS. In an economy, the agents might be individuals or households. In an ecosystem, the agents are species.
In a brain, the agents are nerve cells, and in an embryo, the agents are cells. The agents of weather include winds and water vapor. Edward Lorentz began his weather studies in the 1960s with the goal of being able to devise a long-term weather forecast. What he learned was that very small changes in initial conditions in a weather system have the power to create large and unpredictable outcomes. He realized that any current state of the weather is not able to predict what the weather might be in even a few days, because tiny disturbances to the system are able to produce enormous changes. Lorentz’s butterfly metaphor (1963) is one of the most well-known concepts of complexity theory. In the metaphor, a single butterfly somewhere in the Amazon randomly flaps its wings. This flapping triggers a dramatic chain of events that ripple outward and, through a series of activities, culminate in a cyclone that hits the coast of North America. In a CAS, each individual agent is in an environment produced by its interactions with the other agents in the system. It constantly acts and reacts to the activities and movements of other agents; nothing in the system is fundamentally static or disconnected. Small changes can have a surprisingly profound impact on the overall behavior and response from the system.
Examining the Evidence
Complexity leadership theory (CLT) characterizes change as emerging from various
positions within a CAS. Uhl-Bien at al. (2007) suggest that there are three types of leadership:
administrative, adaptive, and enabling. Administrative leadership is concerned with the structural
and management components of an entity, such as the acquisition of resources to meet goals and
implementing planning and organization strategies. Adaptive leadership has to do with 30
mobilizing an organization to adapt its behaviors to thrive in an altered environment (Heifetz &
Laurie, 2001). It produces “new ideas, innovations, adaptability and change” (Uhl-Bien &
Marion, 2009). The third type of leadership, enabling leadership, operates in the interface
between administration and adaptation; it “maneuvers and protects the conditions in which
adaptive leadership can flourish, and it allows for emerging innovations (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007).
Emergence is defined as “a sudden, unpredictable change event produced by the actions of
mechanisms” (Marion, 2008, p. 9). Conditions favorable to emergence states facilitate not only
the creation of adaptations but also their continuous re-creation over time (Chiles et al., 2004).
“Emergence and transformation are intimately bound up: Emergence is a transformative process,
and transformation is an emergent process” (Leifer, 1989).
In their study explaining how a collective of live musical performance theaters in Branson,
Missouri, came into being and periodically transformed itself over a 100-year period, Chiles et al. (2004) organize their interpretation of case study data according to what they refer to as the four dynamics of emergence: fluctuation, feedback, stabilization, and recombination. Four sets of fluctuations occurred in Branson over the course of a century, and each fluctuation cycle gave rise to a state of disequilibrium. In turn, the generated disequilibrium led to adaptive behaviors by various residents of the town, creating novel configurations of the local musical entertainment industry. Positive feedback loops initiated by these energized adaptive behaviors supported continuing forward-leaning momentum. The existing culture of the town itself provided the needed structures of stabilization, as the primary actors in the configuration continually recombined existing resources—the theaters, performers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, and additional supporting industries and citizens of Branson. The authors’ analysis suggests that “punctuated 31 disequilibrium” in systems may be viewed in a positive light, because these fluctuations have the capacity to stimulate adaptive behaviors necessary for innovation and success.
Lichtenstein and Plowman (2009) analyzed three empirical studies through the lens of complexity leadership theory, including the Branson study just mentioned, to explain the production of emergent outcomes. Their analysis validates Chiles et al.’s “four dynamics of emergence,” including the outcome of the new emergent order. Their work extends complexity leadership theory into practice by identifying specific practices that tend to encourage conditions of emergence (Lichtenstein, 2016). Nooteboom and Termeer (2013) focused their investigation on the disruptive strategies of leaders that have the potential to become embedded practices within an organization. Their study examines those deliberate actions that multiple leaders within the configuration deployed to foster innovation within an organization viewed as a complex adaptive system. Its findings suggest that there are indeed specific strategies of successful complexity leadership. The leadership trait of flexibility is particularly valuable in successful complex organizations, enabling leaders to nimbly shift between administrative, adaptive, and enabling leadership functions. The authors also note that individuals were able to continue participating in enabling leadership as they were switching between other leadership functions
(Nooteboom & Termeer, 2013). Additionally critical to successful complexity leadership, according to many of these studies, are the embedded leaders’ meta-awarenesses: their understandings of the dynamic processes of which they were a part, as well as their abilities to connect and communicate about their processes and to articulate how their strategies drove conditions of emergence.
32
Complexity Leadership Theory and Schools
“The dynamics of complex systems are first and foremost relational.” (Semetsky, 2008).
For many years the language used to describe schools and school leadership arose from the field of engineering. Schools were described as “factories for learning,” with students seated in rows, the time regulated by bells, the curriculum guided by standards, and with students, teachers, and schools themselves graded according to a measure of the quality of a uniformly produced product. It may, however, be more useful to describe schools as complex adaptive systems (CASs). Organizations viewed as CASs are responsive, adaptive, organic manifestations that emerge based on feedback from the system. They comprise myriad dynamic, interacting, interrelated agents that are “cooperatively bonded” (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007) around a mission and vision. CASs are nested systems made up of diverse agents that can each be considered to be systems in their own right (Axelrod & Cohen, 2000).
Schools by their very nature are systems made up of diverse agents, such as students, teachers, and families who are connected by relationships, and are nested in a network structure that includes larger systems, such as the local community and its educational landscape (Epstein,
2011). They are influenced by both small and large internal and external shifts that can have enormous effects, and the outcomes that result from the combinations of their various agents are greater and richer than what is possible from a single individual (Morrison, 2002). Schools, as
CASs, scan and respond to the external environment, both natural and manufactured, by making internal adjustments and developments to meet the demands of that changing external environment (Waldrop, 1992). 33
Leaders viewing their work through the lens of complexity theory acknowledge that the future cannot be precisely predicted and recognize that organizations do not move in a linear path toward narrowly defined goals. Those with positional power are asked to think in systems, foster conditions that support emergence, and recognize patterns by maintaining a view of the entirety of the organization “from the balcony” (Heifetz & Lurie, 1997). Viewing leadership through the lens of complexity, school leaders are challenged to find and create comfort in the enabling space between equilibrium and disequilibrium—between stability and chaos—as they nurture this enabling condition within the system. The lens of complexity leadership theory promotes a re- visioning of the notion of leaders as controllers and of organizations as being entities under control. For school leaders, the task of leading embraces the task of creating the conditions for change, rather than providing an exact blueprint for how to achieve it: “The task is to be less like a Napoleon, concerned with tiny details, and more like Churchill, concerned with the bigger picture and overall direction” (Tong, 2006).
Complexity Leadership: Theory into Practice
The Chilean mine rescue of 2010 can be usefully analyzed through the lens of complexity leadership theory (Comfort & Haase, 2006; Rashid et al., 2013; Scandura & Sharif, 2013). This extreme disaster created a state of profound disequilibrium, a fluctuation that gave rise to the first dynamic associated with complexity leadership. The Chilean mine collapse was unprecedented along several dimensions: The depth at which the miners were trapped, the unstable rock formation, the lack of maps, and the mine’s age all contributed to the novelty of the problem of rescue (Rashid et al., 2013). The “edge of chaos” had been reached, creating disequilibrium, the enabling condition required for emergence in a complex adaptive system (Uhl-Bien at al., 2007).
In Chile, a strong leadership team, headed by Andre Sougarret, was quickly assembled. Of 34 particular interest as viewed through the complexity leadership lens was his ability to assess the disparate elements of the situation as they arose (adaptive leadership behavior) and to coordinate the functional next steps of the operation (administrative leadership behavior). Even more valuable was the enabling component of Sougarret’s leadership, which motivated and made space for continuous feedback loops of communication and evaluation regarding what was working and what was not working. His leadership allowed for multiple voices, expertise, and processes to function simultaneously as the entire CAS was united by the mission of rescue, which eventually yielded success.
Limitations
There are several critiques of complexity leadership theory (CLT). In their analysis of
case study data gathered over a period of 4 years, Houchin and MacLean (2005) term processes
of emergence as “complex recursive systems” (p. 149) rather than as complex adaptive systems.
Citing concerns raised by earlier studies, they posit that the best use of complexity theory to
understand organizational emergence is as a metaphor, rather than an application (Morgan, 1997;
Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001). Several researchers have highlighted the human desire to avoid the
anxiety that is experienced in response to change as being of critical importance to the issues
surrounding the dynamic of organizational disequilibrium, even while acknowledging that
disequilibrium is a condition that does foster emergence. They note that the psychological issues
that arise within the context of organizations as social systems have not been adequately taken
into account in considering the application of complexity theory to organizations, which are, of
course, comprised of human beings rather than mathematical or technological processes. In
another study of the applicability of the dynamics of complexity leadership theory, Mcquillan
(2008) examines the processes of change in small school reform efforts. Claiming that many 35 school reform efforts have been atheoretical and have not taken into account the interrelated and interactive nature of the schools themselves, he applies complexity theory dynamics to schools and their systems as complex configurations. In discussing his findings, Mcquillan (2008), like
Houchin and MacLean (2005), underscores the element of human nature as a key component of the processes of emergence, an element to which other analyses of complexity leadership theory have devoted less consideration.
Of particular interest are the forces known as fractals, or control parameters that serve to keep a system in balance (Gleick, 1987; Larsen-Freeman, 1997). In the school conceived as a system, the fractal that keeps emergence within a predictable range is school culture. The culture of a school refers to the “beliefs, perceptions, relationships, attitudes, and written and unwritten rules” that shape school function (Mcquillan, 2008). School culture is also embedded in the mission, vision, and values of the school as a system. Mcquillan points out that “culture is not predictive, but does define the possible” (p. 1789). The author notes that CLT calls attention to the interconnected relationships between various elements of school as system, rather than the traditional reform practices of one-off interventions that are viewed as distinct and disconnected; he cautions, however, that CLT may not be fully applicable in school configurations, but that this theoretical lens is “good to think with.” Finally, leaders viewing their tasks through this lens need to remember to stabilize things when too much emergence occurs too fast, so that the entire system does not gyrate out of control (Lichtenstein & Plowman, 2009; Uhl-Bien & Marion,
2008).
36
Conclusions
Traditional models of leadership were appropriate for the age in which they arose: the industrial era. Today’s rapidly shifting complex environment requires a leadership model germane to the knowledge-era needs of the 21st century. According to Uhl-Bien (2013), applied complexity leadership theory takes place within a context of richly networked interactions that generate an environment of emergence. It recognizes the need both for administrative leadership and adaptive leadership functions. Whereas the administrative function is concerned with traditional managerial tasks, the adaptive leadership function recognizes and responds to shifts in the environment, creating the necessary methods, means, and ambience favorable to transparency and communication. Into the space between administration and adaptation, enabling leadership functions arise, where they energize and motivate emergence. Enabling leadership “maneuvers and protects the conditions in which adaptive leadership can flourish, and it allows for emerging innovations” (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007).
Chapter Three: Research Design
Methodology
“Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world.
Qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of
or interpret phenomena in terms of the meaning people bring to them.” (Denzin, 2011, p.
3)
This autoethnographic study explores my experience as the leader of Jewish Community
Day School (JCDS) of Greater New Orleans, a school on the brink of closure, and its attempts to move to feasibility and sustainability. This odyssey is viewed through the lens of complexity 37 leadership theory, a leadership model germane to the knowledge-era needs of the 21st century and applicable to the context of richly networked interactions that comprise the JCDS milieu.
Autoethnography as methodology emanates from the dynamic and evolving traditions of qualitative research (Creswell, 2013). Linking elements of ethnography and autobiography disciplines, autoethnography is a fine distillation of the two. Ethnographers, embedded as participant observers, interviewers, and collectors of physical data, seek to describe the behavior, language, and interaction among members of a group or culture to develop a rich textual description and fresh understanding of the group (Creswell, 2013; Denzin, 2014). Ethnographic researchers collect field notes based on observation over significant lengths of time. Using additional forms of data, such as participant interviews, and documentary data including newspaper and magazine articles, they seek a sociocultural understanding of the group of focus, tying together fieldwork and culture via text (Van Maanan, 2011). Although ethnographers may find themselves altered as a result of the fieldwork, description of their personal experience may not explicitly become part of the ethnographic text. In fact, the ethnographic tradition calls for researchers to remain uninvolved and distant; they endeavor to maintain an objective stance as they first identify and then shut the door to bias, experience, and subjectivity (Ellis, 2009;
McCorkal & Myers, 2003).
Autoethnographers, in contrast, “write themselves into their ethnography” (Denzin, 2014).
I chose autoethnography as the research method for this inquiry primarily because my own experience as head of JCDS is tightly woven into the arc of the school’s journey, and together, they become the subject of this study. To presume that these two could be authentically separated would negate the value of my own autobiographical participant material as a source of primary data (Chang, 2007). This autoethnographic study weaves together my experience as leader of the 38
Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans and the evolution of the school in its attempts to move forward on an uncertain expedition from disaster and disruption toward viability and strength.
Reflections on Autoethnography as Research Methodology
“None of us live in a disconnected world.” (Muncey, 2010, p. 3)
I initially considered phenomenology as a methodological approach to this study. The phenomenological approach requires rich description that strives for deep understanding of lived experience. This approach would be conducive to exploring the experience of a segment of the
New Orleans population during a unique and painful period following the disruption caused by
Hurricane Katrina. However, phenomenology requires the researcher to expose her bias and to remove the “self” from thick subject description (Creswell, 2013; Moustakas, 1994). As my search for a “best–fit” research methodology continued, I was introduced to autoethnography, which at its core intentionally brings the personal to the cultural. The methodology calls for a reflective personal account, for reflexivity, as a necessary and valued component of the study
(Dyson, 2007). My work as JCDS head of school is both an intensely personal experience in a challenging situation and a story that is deeply linked to a particular moment in the historical, social, and cultural setting that is post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. According to Ellis and
Bochner, autoethnography is “an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural” (2000, p. 739).
Autoethnography as a research paradigm is not sharply proscribed. The term was first used
by Karl Heider in his 1975 article, “What Do People Do? Dani Auto-Ethnography.” He uses the
root “auto” in two different ways. The first has to do with the Dani people’s own account of their 39 culture, and the second refers to their telling it in the most routine, simple manner possible, a telling that is “automatic.” Heider, as researcher, removes himself from his inquiry. The ethnographic element of the term “autoethnography” is the voice of the Dani people themselves as they share their understanding of their world through Heider’s text (1975). David Hayano, in his 1979 publication, “Auto-Ethnography: Paradigms, Problems and Prospects,” is credited with being the first to refer to the study of the culture of a group of which the researcher is a member.
The core components of autoethnography are the researcher, (auto), the culture being studied (ethno), and the manner in which the study is broadcast to a larger audience (graphy).
Different researchers place varying emphasis on each of these elements and define the term in various ways. Indeed, Ellis, Adams, and Bocher (2011) list and describe some nine variations of the paradigm, including reflexive, dyadic interviews that focus on the interactively produced meanings and emotional dynamics of the interview itself and on ways in which the interviewer may have been changed by the process of interviewing; indigenous/native ethnographies in which indigenous/native ethnographers work to construct their own personal and cultural stories; and reflexive/narrative ethnographies that document the ways a researcher changes as a result of doing fieldwork. The involvement of the ethnographer ranges along a continuum from initiating research from the ethnographer's biography, to the ethnographer studying her or his life alongside cultural members' lives, to ethnographic memoirs in which the researcher’s memories become the substance of the inquiry (pp. 6–7). Each of its iterations explicitly embraces the autoethnographic researcher’s voice, rather than its being implied (Adams, Jones, & Ellis, 2013).
In this autoethnographic study of my experience as a leader of a day school during a particularly precarious period, I employ an autoethnographic style that most closely adheres to the format of 40
a layered ethnographic memoir in which the researcher’s memories become the substance of the
inquiry (pp. 6–7).
This autoethnographic layered account represents the yin and yang, or intentional back- and-forth complementary blending, of the author’s experience alongside data that are collected via field notes, archival documents and photographs, relevant literature, and reflective analysis.
Layered accounts illustrate how "data collection and analysis proceed simultaneously" (Charmaz,
1983, p. 110) and are especially appealing to me as a paradigm that echoes my own value, as an educator, of practicing the metacognitive process. Like metacognition, an empowering practice that stresses the construction of a critical awareness of one’s thinking and learning as one is thinking and learning, layered accounts “reflect and refract the relationship between personal/cultural experience and interpretation/analysis” (Adams, Jones, & Ellis, 2013, p. 85).
Layered accounts use a variety of writing tools, including vignettes, metaphor, and reflexivity, to
“invoke" readers to enter into the "emergent experience" of the study (Ronai, 1992).
Data Collection
“Back and forth autoethnographers gaze, first through an ethnographic wide-angle lens,
focusing outward on social and cultural aspects of the personal experience; then they look
inward, exposing a vulnerable self.” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739)
Autoethnographers aim to blend the representation (graphy) of the cultural (ethno) and
the self (auto) to create a unique study along a continuum of degrees of involvement of the
researcher. Data collection for this autoethnographic study, therefore, merged thick description
of the cultural milieu in which the research took place—the “ethnographic wide-angle lens”—
with my own reflections, observations of my own behaviors, and documentation of my own 41 thoughts (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739). External data were gathered via a review of artifacts, documents such as community leaders’ speeches, JCDS board meeting minutes, newspaper articles, and internal school records. According to Chang (2007), the collection of external data serves a variety of purposes; it provides contextual information, validates personal data, and connects the autoethnographer’s private story with the outer world. In combination, these collections of internal and external data served as the underpinning of my autoethnographic journey.
Data Analysis
To create threads of relevance between their own experience and that of their readers, autoethnographers not only write narratives about their lived experience but they must also analyze it (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011). This analysis is based on consultation with cultural members and their comments on the period of time I describe in my writing (Foster, 2006;
Marvasti, 2006; Tillmann-Healy, 2001), an examination of relevant cultural artifacts (Boylorn,
2008; Denzin, 2006), and assessment of my personal experience compared and contrasted to existing research findings (Ronai, 1995, 1996).
Trustworthiness
Autoethnographic research inherently places the researcher at the center of the study, and as such, the work itself connotes implied consent on the part of the author. However, the risk of breaching confidentiality does exist. Issues of trust and confidentiality are even more germane when researchers establish close relationships with participants (Haggerty, 2008) and both the researcher and those being researched are members of what Damianakis and Woodford (2015) term “small connected communities.” Such communities are those in which members are 42
“geographically bounded and tightly knit” (Ellis, 2007), “small sized” (Bayerlein & McGrath,
2006), or comprised of “close knit Native communities” (Quigley, 2006). New Orleans’ small geographic area of 181 square miles is made even smaller by the water that surrounds it: the crescent of the Mississippi River and the enormous Lake Pontchartrain on its northern flank. The first Jews came to Louisiana in the early 1700s, and European Jews began settling here in earnest in the mid-18th century. It is not unusual to meet Jewish New Orleanians whose families have been in the area for six generations, thus creating unusually close connections among them. In fact, native Jewish New Orleanians who wish to marry each other often undergo genetic testing to determine the proximity of their ancestry. Already one of the smallest Jewish communities in proportion to a city of its size in the United States, in 2005 New Orleans lost 25% of its 10,000
Jews to relocation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Although the Jewish population now surpasses its pre-Katrina numbers, the members of JCDS and the New Orleans Jewish
Community may certainly be classified as “small and connected.”
Protection of Human Subjects
A variety of strategies are commonly used in qualitative research to preserve confidentiality. These include excluding identifying data on demographic forms, identifying participants by codes only, giving interview participants the right to refuse to answer any question or to withdraw from the interview at any time, and anonymizing transcriptions by removing identifying information (Creswell, 2009). In this study, I practiced reflexivity at every stage, engaging in active and ongoing reflection regarding the ethical implications of the type of information I was acquiring and the knowledge produced as a result of this inquiry. Additionally, to best ensure participant confidentiality and maintain trustworthiness in the context of the particular small and connected community in which this research is situated, I followed the 43
guidelines suggested by Ellis (2007). I produced an initial, truthful, nuanced draft of my findings
and followed this by a reading focused on the ethics of “what to tell.” This process produced a
second draft. In addition to using pseudonyms for the majority of individuals mentioned in this
study, I also used member checking to gauge participants’ approval of how they are represented
in my findings.
The primary data viewpoint is my own, as the subject and researcher of this study.
Therefore, I, as researcher, provide implied consent to the data identified by this
autoethnographic study.
Chapter Four: Report of Research Findings
A View from the Balcony: Jewish New Orleans
New Orleanians do not seem to mind the dense, damp air that settles under the trapped canopy of automobile exhaust like a blanket in the lungs. It is a simple exercise to identify the locals in the mid-July heat among those waiting in the arrival lanes of the Louis B. Armstrong
International airport; they are actively laughing and chatting together, voices lilting up and down the register with frequent insertions of the word “baby”—as in “Hey, baby!” and, “Alright, baby!” (The New Orleans minor league baseball team that had been known as the Zephyrs for 25 years recently changed its name to the “Baby Cakes.”) The tourists are the silent ones standing in a sodden stupor, sweat dribbling down the backs of their necks, from their foreheads into their eyes, damp rings forming in the folds of their shirts. In the summertime of southeast Louisiana, the water cycle seems confused, with evaporation and condensation suspended, the weight of the water creating a breathless atmospheric soup. New Orleans has been branded the northernmost city of the Caribbean not only because of its climate but also because of its population, relaxed 44 attitudes, food, music, and inimitable lexicon. Its many festivals and celebrations are just some of its features that make daily life in New Orleans different from that in other U.S. cities.
Unfortunately, New Orleans shares some negative characteristics with the Caribbean
Islands, particularly regarding the condition of its infrastructure. According to data collected by the Fair Housing Action Center, of the more than 62,000 rental properties in the city, nearly
50,000 need some kind of major repair, while thousands of other properties suffer from mold, water leakage, rodents, and other issues. TRIP, a national transportation research agency, found that 42% of New Orleans’ roads are in disrepair. Potholes and rough rides alone cost the average driver $713 annually; it is not unusual in many parts of town to see potholes large enough to swallow a car tire. The public transportation system is constricted, comprised of slow-moving streetcars and infrequent buses with limited routes. Car insurance is among the highest in the nation, as are rates of crime and poverty. Even so, New Orleanians love their city. The love for this community is also true for the Jews of New Orleans.
“Small and connected” (Damianakis & Woodford, 2015), the New Orleans’ Jewish community is comprised of close-knit Native communities (Quigley, 2006). Although the French colonists’ law code (known as the “Black Code”) of 1724 decreed that Jews be excluded from the Louisiana Territory, in 1757 a Dutch Sephardic Jew named Isaac Monsanto arrived in New
Orleans. Monsanto and his business partner soon built a successful trading business. Other immigrants followed, including Monsanto’s six brothers. The French did not rigorously enforce the Black Code, but once the Spanish took control in 1769, the new Spanish colonial governor ordered the Monsanto family and other successful Jewish merchants to leave the city because
“they are undesirables on account of the nature of the business and the religion they profess”
(Goldring-Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, 2014). Eventually able to return, these 45 early Jewish immigrants continued to be financially successful but did nothing to build a foundation of Jewish life in New Orleans. They were “Jews living without Judaism” (Korn,
1969). The first synagogue, Congregation Shangarai Chasset (Gates of Mercy), was founded in
1827 by Isaac Solis. History has it that he could not find matzo, the unleavened bread eaten during the Passover holiday and therefore, he “sought out his co-religionists to combine and build a synagogue,” as a solid base for New Orleans Jewish life (Markens, 1888). Judah Touro arrived in New Orleans from Rhode Island in 1801, but it was not until near the end of his life that he began to connect with and provide financial support to Jewish institutions in New
Orleans, around the country, and in what was then known as Palestine, becoming the first of the great Jewish philanthropists. His donation funded completion of the building of Shangarai
Chasset, which became America’s first congregation outside of the original 13 states. Of its 33 founding members, however, only 3 were married to Jewish women. In a radical yet pragmatic shift from common practice of the day, the bylaws of Shangarai Chasset allowed non-Jewish spouses of members to be buried in its Jewish cemetery and children of intermarried couples to become members of the congregation.
New Orleans is part of the Deep South and identifies as such. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, the majority of New Orleans Jews were supporters of the Confederacy, and many fought for this cause. The capture of New Orleans in 1862 forced a decision on the local population: swear allegiance to the United States or be deported to the Confederacy. The rabbi of one of the early congregations, James Gutheim, chose to leave the city rather than support the Union.
Gutheim’s refusal to pledge his support for the Union made him a hero of many Southern Jews, and he returned to New Orleans ten years later to become the spiritual leader of the newly formed Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation that now has 900 member families. After the Civil 46
War, New Orleans was home to several Jewish congregations and a Jewish infrastructure that included the Hebrew Benevolent Association and the Association for the Relief of Widows and
Orphans. Subtle and not-so-subtle echoes of its past reverberate in the New Orleans of today.
Modern Infrastructure
The entire population of New Orleans is highly religiously affiliated, with just over 30% percent belonging to Catholic churches. The Jewish community of New Orleans similarly has a high affiliation rate. The Jews of New Orleans are typically joiners—people who are connected to a synagogue and Jewish Community Center or and participate in Jewish Federation’s activities and annual fundraising campaign. The majority of New Orleans’ Jews are members of one of the area’s three Reform congregations established early in its history. Temple Sinai was founded in
1870; Shangarai Chasset, which evolved into Touro Synagogue, began in 1828; and
Congregation Gates of Prayer was established in 1850. The offspring of these congregants have typically attended the city’s historically premier private college preparatory academy, the Isidore
Newman School. The Isidore Newman Manual Training School, as it was then known, was opened in 1903 by its eponymous Jewish philanthropist, the founder of the Maison Blanche department store chain. By 1914, the Orthodox Congregation Beth Israel boasted a membership of 250 families and, until the end of World War II, was the largest Orthodox congregation in the
South. The city’s Communal Hebrew School opened in 1918 to encourage the study of Hebrew language and the Jewish religion, operating as an afternoon school and nursery. Twenty years later, the school counted 800 alumni and an enrollment of 150 students in 10 classes taught by four faculty members. Communal’s first principal was the noted Hebrew writer, Ephraim S.
Lisitzky, who served as its leader for 33 years and created a highly successful and nationally respected program. 47
In its early years, the Jewish community called the Lower Garden District home, with synagogues, schools, and specialized shops to serve its community. By the mid-twentieth century, as in other American cities, the Jewish population of New Orleans was departing the city center for the suburbs. In 1964, the modern Orthodox Congregation Beth Israel cut the ribbon for its new suburban building on Canal Boulevard. Rabbi Zelig and Bluma Rivkin moved to New Orleans to become co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Louisiana in 1975, and in 1990, a branch was opened in suburban Metairie. Congregation Gates of Prayer, one of the city’s three
Reform congregations, dedicated its suburban building in September 1975. Shir Chadash
Conservative Congregation was created in nearby Metairie in 2001 by the merger of
Congregations Chevra T’hilim and Tikvat Shalom. Just across the parking lot from Shir
Chadash, the Goldring-Woldenberg Jewish Community Campus opened its doors in January
2003, housing the New Orleans Jewish Day School, the Jewish Federation of Greater New
Orleans, and the suburban satellite of the Jewish Community Center. By that time, perhaps 30% of its 9,500 total Jewish population lived outside of the city center, with the city’s overall population in that year numbering 454,865.
However, throughout New Orleans’ history, there has never been a defined Jewish neighborhood. Community leader and New Orleans native, Carol Wise, comments that unlike other cities, “We have NEVER had one section of the city that is primarily Jewish—we are a
Gumbo—each of the parts makes us better.” Of note, in 2005, 75% of New Orleans’ aging
Jewish community identified as Reform. This statistic is relevant because the Reform movement’s members have historically been less supportive of Jewish day school education than the Conservative and Orthodox communities (Syme, 1983). Only one year later, a post-Katrina 48
2006 census numbered the Jewish population at 6,000, while the general population of the city had fallen to 208,548.
Financial Snapshot 2006–2013
The New Orleans Jewish Day School opened its doors in August 1995 with a cohort of 12 kindergarteners, and its first eighth-grade class graduated in August 2005. Expansion of the school was funded by the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana (JEF), an annual allocation from the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, and other donations and contributions, both local and national. The middle school received start-up funding via a matching grant from the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) beginning in
August 2002. When the school reopened after the storm in August 2006 for students in grades kindergarten through three, the majority were new to the school. Yearly tuition was dramatically reduced after Katrina to jumpstart student enrollment. The gap between expected tuition income and the cost of running the school was generously funded primarily by a Katrina Recovery Grant from United Jewish Communities, and by the AVI CHAI foundation, which instituted a 1:2 matching grant for this purpose. Special incentives were made available through the local Jewish
Federation’s Newcomers Program, including discounted student tuition by $1,000 per new student for the first year and $500 the second year. Enrollment and tuition steadily increased in the recovery years between 2006–2007 and 2011–2012. In contrast to the positive trajectories of the previous years, enrollment began to decrease in 2012–2013 (see Table 1).
49
Table 1. Jewish Community Day School Enrollment, Tuition, and Contribution Income, 2001–
2014
Donations, Grants Year Enrollment Tuition & Federation Allocation 2001–02 58 $5,900 $295,610 2002–03 74 $6,750 $460,207 2003–04 83 $7,450 $755,817 2004–05 86 $7,475 $488,478 2005–06 78 $7,475 $437,937 (approved) 2006–07 22 $4,187 $361,226 2007–08 24 $4,500 $365,408 2008–09 42 $6,000 $368,521 2009–10 47 $6,450 $372,666 2010–11 50 $7,950 $247,000 2011–12 51 $8,850 $335,456 2012–13 38 $9,750 $527,000 2013–14 27 $10,450 $229,700
Crisis Event: The Juncture of Emergence
Six of us were assembled in a darkened classroom, the better to view the Skype image of the consultant, Devorah Schneider, who had been retained some four months earlier to determine the viability of the day school. She had been tasked with analyzing seven core issues. The first was location. Would enrollment be likely to increase if the school moved closer to areas where young people were choosing to live? Before Hurricane Katrina, the trend was for the Jewish population of New Orleans to move away from the Lower Garden District and Uptown, areas close to the city center, and out to the suburbs of Lakeview and Metairie. The school was established in a set of small trailers in 1995 in Metairie, and its permanent building built nearby in 2003. The neighborhoods around the school had been devastated by Katrina-related flooding.
Unable to return to their original homes and with repairs likely to take years, many suburban 50 residents purchased homes in other areas. Newcomers overwhelmingly opted to live closer in to the city, reinvigorating the downtown core, Warehouse District, and the Uptown neighborhood.
Tuition rate and the tuition assistance process were the next considerations. What was the school’s current ratio of tuition to budget, and what was typical in other Jewish day schools?
Healthy independent schools aim for tuition to cover between 80% to 90% of their budgets. In typical community-affiliated Jewish day schools, of which JCDS is one, about 60% of the operating budget is met through tuition payments. The ratio in Orthodox-affiliated schools often drops below 60%, and even sometimes as low as 40%. Our community day school had been running on a budget of approximately $650,000, with $157,000 of that covered by tuition; therefore tuition income was supporting only 26% of the annual operating budget. Until 2008, a high percentage of the student body was paying the full tuition rate, but tuition assistance had dramatically increased by 2012–2013; in that year, only 25% of the student body was paying the full tuition of $9,450.
Nursery school feeders were the next issue of concern. What were the relationships between the day school and the two Jewish nursery schools in the area? It is critical that private elementary schools have reliable nursery school feeders. The majority of Jewish day schools in the United States have early childhood (nursery school) programs on their campuses, as either a department of the school or through a partnership with another agency. In Jewish day schools housed on a community campus, the Jewish Community Center will typically run the nursery school, creating a pathway to familiarity for the Jewish day school for families. The relationships between the two local Jewish nursery schools and the day school were characterized by tension, mistrust, and a lack of knowledge or interest. 51
The next question had to do with the grades that should be served. Should the number of grades be reduced or increased? New Orleans Jewish Day School had opened with a kindergarten in 1995 and developed by adding a grade each year, reaching eighth grade in 2004–
2005 with an enrollment of 86 students: This number would represent the peak student population in the school’s history. NOJDS reopened after its year-long Katrina closure in 2006 with grades K–3. At the time of the feasibility study in the spring of 2013, the school has a population of 38 students in grades K–5.
The school’s educational philosophy was the next focus topic. What would be the implications of branding the school with a recognized education methodology or focus, such as
Montessori, foreign-language immersion, or special education, and would a merger with the
Chabad school align with that brand? According to the establishing documents of the New
Orleans Jewish Day School, the school was founded “so that Jewish children from all backgrounds and from the entire spectrum of religious observance could learn, pray and celebrate together, with full respect for the differences in belief and observance, in a setting that provides a high quality secular and religious education” (Stern, 2006). In its history, the school’s mission statement had not defined the methods by which high-quality instruction would be achieved. Community members were especially interested in exploring whether becoming a
Montessori school would resonate with parents and increase enrollment. Torah Academy, the school run by the local Chabad Lubavitch community and located a mere 0.7 miles away, was scheduled to reopen with a new, state-of-the art FEMA-funded building; it was also being branded as Modern Orthodox school open to everyone. There was real concern that some of the renamed Community Day School’s current or prospective students would be drawn to Torah 52
Academy, particularly since our school had dropped the word “Jewish” from its title and was
aggressively recruiting non-Jewish students.
The next issue had to do with the school’s admission policy. Would a return to the school’s original mission—to exclusively recruit Jewish children from all backgrounds— positively influence recruitment efforts? Although in the 2010–2011 academic year 24% of the students did not self-identify as Jewish, the active recruitment of non-Jewish students was only instituted for enrollment in the 2012–2013 year. This initiative resulted in a 35% non-Jewish student body and a parallel drop in enrollment from 51 students in 2011–2012 to 38 students the next year.
Finally, this essential question would be investigated: Should Community Day School
(CDS) close? Answering this question would require analysis of the data from the previous six years and would be the focus of the consultant’s work. Based on the broad spectrum of her research, and including demographic reports and projections, could the school feasibly survive?
Schneider interviewed scores of stakeholders during the four-month period of her consultancy. They included former and current parents, teachers, former and current board members, and Jewish Federation professional and lay leaders. She conferred multiple times with her own professional peers. The day of our meeting when she would present her findings was itself auspicious: It was the day before Kol Nidre, the chanting of which prayer begins the 25- hour pinnacle of the Jewish High Holy Days season. In communities around the world, the
Jewish people would begin to collectively ask forgiveness for the sins of the past year. We would fast, neither eating nor drinking from sunset to full darkness the next night. Worldly matters would be eschewed as we stood, heads bowed before the gates of heaven, praying to be written into the Book of Life for the coming year. It was an existentially precarious time, with feelings, 53 memories, and emotions distilled by the power of the day. And here were the six of us, together, to learn of the fate being recommended for Community Day School.
I had known that there were problems when I accepted the position as head of Community
Day School. I was aware of declining enrollment, low teacher and parent morale, the shift in admission policy to vigorously recruit non-Jewish and Louisiana Scholarship (voucher program) students, as well as the school’s financial uncertainty, all of which were causes of deep concern.
On my arrival in New Orleans I learned firsthand the existence of another problem: the dysfunction of the Board of Directors. The first board meeting I attended was brimming with contention, interruptions, and raised voices. Even so, the possibility of the school actually closing had not been on my radar until the evening before the study result review, when I answered my home phone and heard the voice of our consultant on the line. She was calling me out of courtesy, she said, to give me a head’s up before the next day’s group conference. With my heart pounding in my throat and my stomach sinking, I asked her what she would recommend. “I’m going to recommend the school close,” she uttered. She went on to say more, adding some details, but for several moments, with the phone pressed to my ear, I could not hear her. When her voice did penetrate my shock, she was articulating details of 12 major obstacles to the school’s continuing existence. She would present these in the form of recommendations at the next day’s meeting and planned to complete her presentation with her conclusion; that she did not believe the school could succeed.
The first major obstacle was dubbed “The Educational Product.” Schneider’s
recommendations to overcome this obstacle included choosing a known educational philosophy,
such as International Baccalaureate or the Reggio Emilia approach, which would provide a brand
that people could Google. She did not think that the Montessori model would work with our 54 current students. We were also advised to continue using the Responsive Classroom approach, which I had already introduced, to create a kind, respectful, responsible, and safe school community. It was also suggested that we join the Digital J Learning Network, a national network of Jewish schools that provides online blended learning support for the school; to integrate the Jewish Studies and General Studies programs, rather than allowing them to function as separate curricula; and to offer adult education, adding a touch-point possibility to the broader community interested in Jewish education.
“Feeders” was the second major obstacle identified. Schneider noted that the school’s relationship with its local Jewish nursery school feeders was in very bad shape. A tremendous amount of work needed to be done to enhance relationships with both the synagogue nursery school and the Jewish Community Center. The third obstacle was “Board Function.” The functioning of the board would need to be seriously upgraded, with trainings to teach the board how to operate at a stronger, more professional level. The consultant found the initial board retreat that I organized to be a great start, though we were now in need of a strategic plan and a strong donor database with extensive data. We were told to consider changing the current board into an advisory board and then to replace it with people with experience in particular areas brought in from other boards to provide an improved, more diverse, and stronger board for the coming years.
“Fundraising” was a critically important obstacle, because we had depleted our endowment resources to make ends meet when tuition was so low and had also gained a reputation in the community as generally careless financial stewards. Schneider instructed us to implement a systematized approach, creating donor lists with contact names, each of whom would be given a rating. We had to learn the history of their giving, both to Jewish and non- 55
Jewish organizations, their interests, and relationships. We needed to know exactly who the potential donors were, what boards they sat on, and exactly what was their philanthropic capacity. Accountable lay leaders and a chairperson needed to be appointed, and we required training in “Moves Management” as a donor development strategy. Finally, we needed to do an honest evaluation of our fundraising events to determine whether they were financially worthwhile. This involved analyzing the number of hours spent planning each event and looking at other options that might be more effective in bringing in contributions.
“Endowment” was the school’s fifth obstacle. The consultant wanted to see an endowment strategy emerge from a formal fundraising strategic plan. We would need to create strategies for fundraising with alumni, parents and grandparents of alumni, current parents, board members, the community at large, and the New Orleans broader community. Experienced and accountable lay people would be needed as chairs. Additionally, Schneider noted that all current board members must be donating to the school as their number one or number two philanthropic priority, the standard for the world of private schools, and that this requirement must be enforced.
The school also needed a well-thought out, well-informed, strategic tuition and tuition assistance plan. The consultant noted that Catholic schools and Chabad have low tuition rates and then require donations above that. She suggested asking parents if they would be able to give a little bit more, take out a loan, or get help from a family member in order to pay full tuition.
Another money-saving approach advocated was bartering tuition for task skills the school was currently paying someone to do. We were also told to look into the Louisiana tax credit program, in which for every dollar a donor gives to the school’s tuition scholarship program, a dollar tax credit is received on state income taxes. She recommended that we learn from the area 56 independent schools’ admissions criteria and tuition assistance programs as well.
The seventh obstacle was poor retention, and Schneider recommended that we address it with “Exit Surveys.” She informed us that the school must do exit surveys or hire someone to do them to discover why the school’s retention was so abysmal. “Recruitment” was the eighth obstacle. The consultant pointed out that if we were going to recruit just anyone who would be willing to attend the school, we would end up with only those few families, which was our predicament at the time. Instead we needed a specific recruitment plan that identified specific families. From prospective parents, we needed to know their children’s schooling history, where they lived, where their children were currently in school, and what they were looking for in their children’s next educational step. We had to keep in mind that our current parents were our most effective recruiters and our highest recruitment feeders. Parents were the ones who talked to their friends, went to the preschool meetings and made positive comments about the school, and then posted their kids’ artwork and certificates on Facebook and other social media. If we were to succeed, the parents would need to act that way.
The final four obstacles were “School Branding,” “Professional Development,”
“Benchmarking,” and “Name Change.” Regarding branding, the consultant instructed that once the school chooses a philosophy, it must make an investment of funds in high-level public relations and marketing campaigns and attractive promotional materials. She was aware that we had recently spent quite a lot of money rebranding and renaming the school. We would have to make a very serious investment in brand management, including setting up a Facebook blog and
Facebook pages for every classroom. We were told to tour independent schools in the area to find out what our competitors were offering. Regarding professional development, Schneider believed that the school required serious and ongoing professional development embedded in 57
current work for the faculty and the staff. This need was urgent, and without this type of
investment, we were warned that the school would fail. She recommended that the school begin
benchmarking every 6 months to tell the story of the school’s growth over time. Finally,
regarding the possibility of once again renaming the school, the consultant recommended that,
because the name had been changed so recently, we should stick with it.
The committee sat in stunned and unbelieving silence as the consultant delivered the final blow, taking a deep breath in the middle:
I’ve consulted with several of my senior colleagues about you. These are people who
have, as I do, considerable experience with Jewish day schools of varying affiliations
around the country. You’ve had a 69% attrition rate over the past 7 years. You’ve
depleted your endowment. You’ve changed the name of the school, deleting the word
“Jewish,” against the wishes of the greater Jewish community and the advice of
RAVSAK, your Jewish day school network. Many of the people I’ve interviewed
describe the school as a school of last resort, one that will “take anyone that breathes.”
They are not drawn to the school because it is a Jewish day school. They do like the small
class sizes and individualized attention. But, when I asked folks what changes would
improve this school, 30% of them told me that a great way to improve this school would
be to change the student body. That’s a very striking comment about the school. Even
more telling, 50% of the people I asked said that a stronger Board of Directors would
help to improve the school. The lack of a strategic plan and the lack of fundraising plan
and the inadequate financial resources all fall back onto the shoulders of the Board of
Directors. The market perception is that the Board is weak. Not only is it the reality that
the board is weak, as I’ve already explained, but the market perception is that it’s weak. 58
The school really does have insufficient fundraising and enrollment to cover its costs.
You’ve done a demographic study that gives us projections of the number of Jewish
children likely to be born in the next 7 years, and at least 50% of them would have to
enroll in the school for it to be viable. There is a very clear market perception that the
school’s not going to be around in 5 years. When I asked folks what would make them
more likely to recommend Community Day School, one of the answers that they gave
was sustainability, including financial sustainability. Parents are thinking they can’t
possibly recommend the school to their friends or send their own children if the fear and
perceptions are that the school is going to close. In conclusion, I just don’t believe the
New Orleans Jewish community has the financial capacity, the interest, or enough
interest or tradition in Jewish day school education to reasonably expect to be able to
maintain the school. It is my opinion that this year should be focused on preparing to
close down the school.
Agents of Change: Year One
Complex adaptive systems (CASs) are comprised of a collective of interacting adaptive agents, some of which are easily identified while others are more challenging to perceive.
Interactions by and among the agents are nonlinear and unpredictable, and actions by agents may cause large, unanticipated effects. Agents of CASs may be human or nonhuman, and according to Axelrod and Cohen, they evolve; their past has a measure of answerability for their present behavior (2001). This section focuses on four agents of the complex adaptive system known as
Jewish Community Day School (JCDS). Three are human, and one is not.
59
Deirdre Rose, the Jewish Community Day School Board of Directors, and the Jewish
Federation of Greater New Orleans
Deirdre Rose owns a shop in the French Quarter where she sells her own beautiful jewelry creations as well as those of other artists. She includes Judaica art items in her inventory and keeps a tzedakah box dedicated to JCDS on the glass counter of her store. Deirdre became involved with the day school when she began reading each week to second- and third-grade students. She quickly fell in love with JCDS and was delighted when asked to join the school’s board in 2009. Although she had no prior nonprofit board or Jewish day school experience (nor had she ever read Robert’s Rules of Order), Deirdre was passionately committed to JCDS.
Dedicating herself to the school’s success, she was voted in as vice president after only one year and became board president in June 2012, just as the school was sliding to the edge of chaos. It was Deirdre who navigated the board’s rough negotiations about explicitly recruiting non-Jewish and Louisiana Scholarship Program students and changing the name of the school. It was Deirdre who received Head of School Paul Marshall’s resignation on the heels of the school’s name change, and it was Deirdre who was obliged to request spending the majority of the school’s endowment so the school could pay its bills. It was Deirdre whom I had met at the North
American Day School Conference and who had convinced me, a Pacific Northwesterner, to throw my hat into the New Orleans ring. It was Deirdre who, within two hours of my final interview, helped trim $100,000 from the operating budget.
And it was Deirdre who comforted me following my first board meeting, during which I
(misguidedly) pitched an idea for a new tagline to the CDS logo that would replace “Learn.
Love, Live.” with “Progressive Education, Jewish Wisdom.” The board erupted. “Do you have no sense what we’ve just been through?” They had just completed the divisive, gut-wrenching 60 process to revamp the school’s identity, and here I was, opening up the Pandora’s box they had just managed to shut. It was a most unpleasant evening. I was shaken and embarrassed. I had presented a suggestion that I perceived to be in alignment with the school’s vision, one of the reasons the board had hired me. That particular disruption, however, starkly revealed several of the board’s weaknesses, even before they were pointed out by our consultant, whose report would not be heard for several weeks. From that evening’s meeting and from subsequent inquiry,
I learned many things about “my” board that surprised me.
Board meetings did not function according to a recognized order, but rather were more of an open discussion forum. There were no board committees. Work that could have been undertaken by committees, which would then present recommendations to the larger group, instead was hashed out by the entire board during each meeting. It became grimly apparent that there were deep divides between board factions, between those who wanted to continue moving forward in the new direction and those who wished to return to the school’s original identity as a
Jewish day school. I also became aware that there existed a tremendous disparity in board giving:
Some members made no financial contribution to the school and had not for several years, whereas others shouldered most of the fundraising weight, both personally and by reaching out to other donors. In fact, there was no plan in place to secure financial support, other than to approach the Jewish Federation with yet another plea for emergency funds. The school’s current marketing practices were unsophisticated and ungrounded, with no formalized plan. Deirdre, the board president, viewed her work with the school through the lens of her experience as a small business owner and so functioned more unilaterally than other board presidents. Despite the caliber and caring of each individual board member and his or her commitment to the school, it became clear that change, facilitated by board coaching, was needed to effectively move forward 61 as a functional, useful board. First, however, was the need to prepare for the Jewish Federation
Allocations Committee’s annual review of our agency.
The Jewish Federation of New Orleans functions as an umbrella for the Jewish community. According to its website, “Since 1913, the Jewish Federation of Greater New
Orleans has served as the central coordinating body for the Jewish community. Its purpose is to build and sustain a vibrant Jewish community in the Greater New Orleans area and, in accordance with Jewish tradition, to assure the continuity of the Jewish people in America, Israel and throughout the Diaspora.” Among its four constituent agencies, Jewish Community Day
School receives the smallest annual allocation. JCDS can expect a core allocation of $60,000 per year, as well as additional grants of fluctuating amounts, depending on the school’s needs and success of the Federation’s annual fundraising campaign. This amount initially was based on a contribution by Federation of $1,000 per student, and that body has generously maintained the allocation despite decreases in enrollment. The school’s rent, which is paid to its Jewish
Federation landlord, runs about $60,000 per year. The financial support of the Jewish Federation, as well as its goodwill, is fundamental to the school’s survival.
Shortly after the conclusion of the Jewish High Holidays each fall, the Federation requires each of its agencies to put together a detailed status report. Presented to the Allocations
Committee of the Federation board, the JCDS annual report shares data about enrollment, faculty and staff numbers, parent involvement figures, industry trends, detailed narratives explicating the positives and negatives of its current position, and, most importantly, the budget. It had been only a few months since our final meeting with our consultant; this year’s meeting would be especially significant. The report was prepared in consultation with Deirdre Rose and our board treasurer. We referred to areas of concern noted by our consultant as guiding the work of 62 improvement. With disappointing enrollment numbers, we discussed our recruitment plan for the coming year. We emphasized our fiduciary stewardship, specifying the numerous reductions to the budget that had been made without undermining the quality of our program. What most impressed the four-member Federation Allocations Committee, however, was our JCDS board team attending the meeting. Despite personal differences about how to make it happen, each of the board members fervently wanted the school to succeed. The typical number of agency board members attending an Allocations Committee review is two or three, including the lead professional. We had brought nine people, each a highly respected member of the New Orleans
Jewish community. Each of the nine had prepared a brief presentation about a component of our annual report, and each spoke eloquently and passionately to the committee about the school’s celebrated past while acknowledging its current rocky road. They spoke of how hard it was to hear our consultant’s report, yet also its value, because its findings established the direction for the school. They shared their own commitment to the school and to strengthening board function.
And they spoke of their excitement in the new Head of School, whom they described as a capable, experienced, positive, and energetic professional who was willing to work as many hours a day as was needed to turn the school around. The Allocations Committee members asked tough questions about enrollment and finances, which were successfully addressed by different JCDS board representatives and me. The committee seemed impressed by our collective handle on the situation, by the expertise represented by each member, by the transparency of our report, by our optimism, and especially by the number and quality of the highly respected mavens who clearly took their commitment to JCDS very seriously.
63
Linda Levinksy
Linda would be described by those who know her as bright, capable, strong, intense, sarcastic, single-minded, blond, tall, photogenic, and a “bull in a china shop.” She was raised by
Catholic parents in Centralia, Washington, in a family of nine siblings. Working for the Red
Cross, she visited New Orleans one Mardi Gras, where she immediately fell in love with the man who became her husband, a Jewish attorney who had relocated to the Big Easy from Yonkers,
New York. Linda became Jewish. She and her husband were founding parents of the New
Orleans Jewish Day School, enrolling their only child, Benjamin, into the initial kindergarten class. Benjamin was a member of the graduating eighth-grade cohort of May 2005. He attended a local public high school for two weeks the following August, and when Hurricane Katrina hit, the entire family evacuated to Chicago where they remained until Benjamin earned his undergraduate degree. Linda continued to work for the Red Cross, using her well-developed marketing and social networking skills to create successful campaigns for the organization. The family planned to return to New Orleans in January 2014 on Linda’s retirement. Even before their arrival Linda was asked to join the JCDS board, and she agreed. The group was thrilled.
They anticipated her 40 years of marketing experience with the Red Cross would be brought to bear to benefit the school. Linda did not disappoint, and immediately on her arrival, she got to work. She made herself familiar with the current attitude of the community toward the day school and with the consultant’s report.
Linda then decided to focus on her area of expertise, the consultant’s ninth challenge, brand management. She first tackled the school’s logo. It had been changed from its initial Star of David surrounded by sunrays over the words “New Orleans Jewish Day School” to a tree with the tagline, “Learn. Love. Live.” for Community Day School. 64
Linda believed we needed something new that would broadcast our reorientation to the mission of our Jewish Community Day School, yet not take us all the way back to 1995. She contacted the city’s preeminent public relations firm, whose owner was Jewish, but who did not have a history of connection to the day school. She asked him to consider taking on our rebranding project pro bono, and he agreed. After meeting with our school team that included
Linda, the school’s very young marketing associate, our board president, and me, the public relations team went to work. They created a logo that staggered us with its powerful, simple, and attractive representation of our organization. We were absolutely delighted. It felt to all of us that the outcome of this project was much greater than the sum of its parts. We had been able to articulate our vision to a prominent member of the New Orleans community, and as shown by the end product, we could tell that he really “got” us. He and his team understood and supported us, and we sensed that they believed in us. The redesigned logo was one of the first tangible positive outcomes of the school’s effort to change its reputation and direction; the entire experience was a breath of fresh air, invigorating and energizing our board, our faculty and staff, parents, and the Jewish community at large (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Logos of New Orleans Jewish Day School (2005), Community Day School (2012), and
Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans (2014).
Linda next determined we could move to part two of her rebranding plan, a community-
wide “We Believe in JCDS” campaign. Linda contacted 20 of Jewish New Orleans’ most
admired individuals, couples, and families—leaders easily recognized and well connected to
different parts of the community. She wrote an introductory letter explaining that she would 65 shortly be calling to ask for their participation in the JCDS campaign. There would be no solicitation; her only request was that they prepare a few words discussing why they believed in
Jewish Community Day School. Linda had arranged for a professional photographer to donate his time to the project, and the photographer would provide to the school, at no charge, a CD of high-resolution portraits. Each participant would receive a professional portrait as a thank-you gift from the school. Linda scheduled the photo sessions, and over the course of two weeks a parade of people marched through the school, walking up the stairs to the beautiful Beit Midrash, our prayer and gathering space on the second floor, through hallways bedecked with student work, and passing classrooms filled with the happy buzz of children learning. Many of our
“Believers” had not set foot in the building in years. As Linda and I greeted our guests, we endeavored to provide a mini-tour, inserting as much positive information about the school as time would allow on our way up to the photo session, ensuring that any staff member who knew the guests also had the opportunity to welcome them. The portraits turned out beautifully, and the participants wrote startlingly personal and poignant prose elucidating their belief in Jewish
Community Day School (see Figure 2). Each portrait, along with its text, was displayed as a poster in our hallway and published as an ad in local Jewish and non-Jewish magazines, newspapers, and online outlets. The campaign was a smashing success and achieved several crucial outcomes. It brought people important to the future success of the school, many of whom may not have been convinced of the school’s value to the community, into our hallways and classrooms where they were able to sense the vibrancy and high-quality environment of JCDS.
66
Figure 2. Portraits of Selected Community Leaders from the JCDS “We Believe” Marketing
Campaign
No words can fully communicate that which one understands from direct experience, and
each of these potential supporters was strongly affected by visiting the school. They thanked us
for selecting them, for the beautiful portraits they were given, and for the opportunity to help the
school. They were also pleased not to have been asked for financial support. Because of the high
standing of the participants, we sensed a slight shift in the attitudes of many members of the
community who viewed the ads. The board, faculty, staff, and I shared the image of the school as
a huge ship that would require multiple efforts to adjust its course. Yet, our feelings were real
and they were positive and they were inspiring. Linda’s work had energized us to carry on.
Twelve Jewish Families
In 2013, JCDS was able to identify 12 children who would be of kindergarten age for the
2014–2015 school year. As Head of School, I worked with our admissions director to devise a multipronged recruitment plan. The majority of the prospective children attended either the JCC
Nursery School, located in uptown New Orleans, or the synagogue nursery school, located in
Metairie a few blocks from the day school; a few outliers were enrolled in smaller early childhood programs. We learned as much as we could about each family and easily discerned 67 that the key influencers of the group were Albert Brody and Rabbi Josh Lyman.
Albert Brody. Albert Brody moved to New Orleans in 1997. He is married to New
Orleans native Cathy and is co-chairman of Rosenberg Family Interests in New Orleans, which oversees interests multiple holdings and investments. He is an active member on the national board of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, (AIPAC), a past president of the board of the Jewish Federation, and board member of the Jewish Community Center and the National
World War II Museum. He chaired the Jewish Leadership Forum from 2005–2006 and again in
2010. Deeply involved in the Jewish community, he adores his son Sam. Albert is a mensch of the first degree and a generous donor to both non-Jewish and Jewish organizations, JCDS among them. Shortly after I arrived in New Orleans, Albert requested a private meeting with me. He informed me that he believed in Jewish day schools and ardently wished for his son Sam to attend JCDS. “As long as there are enough kids for a real class,” he said, “Sam will be there for kindergarten.”
The subsequent turnout for a prospective kindergarten parent gathering exceeded our expectations. At least one parent from each of the 12 prospective Jewish families was in attendance, along with our highly regarded and beloved kindergarten and Jewish studies teachers, several board members, several founding parents, three rabbis, one alumnus, and members of our professional staff. In retrospect, the number of nonparent attendees may have been too many, overwhelming the prospective parents who were there. The meeting was held at
Brody’s newly constructed, opulent office building. Filled with striking local art and multiple nods to the family’s businesses, the scene was sophisticated and comfortable. A booklet of photos of current and former students, captioned with text highlighting our developmentally appropriate, holistic, and Jewishly rich kindergarten program, was presented to the parents. 68
Founding parents of the school testified to the high quality of their children’s education and how each was succeeding in school and in work. The rabbi of the synagogue housing the nursery school, himself a founding parent and the school’s first president, spoke of the value of the JCDS to the community as a whole. Whether or not it would ever be the choice of the majority of local families, the rabbi alleged that the school must exist for New Orleans to attract capable Jewish professionals. An articulate and attractive graduate shared a moving testimonial of how much the school meant to him and the deep, positive, and ongoing impact of his day school education. He shared that the personalized prayerbook his parents had presented to him in first grade was one of the few belongings he saved from Katrina’s floodwaters, and he displayed the siddur to the group. There were many full eyes around the table.
Then Rabbi Lyman, the rabbi of the Conservative synagogue, spoke positively about his older son’s recent kindergarten year at JCDS and that Mrs. Fine was the best possible kindergarten teacher ever, for both children and their parents. There was not a sound in the room as he spoke; all eyes were on him, and there was a palpable tension in the room. During the course of various debriefing meetings, it was revealed that many in the prospective parent group had difficulty with the rabbi’s impassioned testimonial. Rabbi Lyman and his wife, after their older son had finished first grade at the school, had pulled him out, enrolling him in a local public school. Therefore it was not easy for the other parents to accept the veracity of the rabbi’s testimony about his belief in the school.
After Rabbi Lyman spoke, several founding parents shared their love for the school, urging the prospective parent group of 12 to “hold hands and jump in together, just like we did!”
They counseled them to enroll their children in JCDS, and so save the school for the community and its future. 69
In the weeks following the meeting, at least one adult from each of the 12 prospective families toured the school. Albert Brody put a great deal of pressure on the parents of his son’s
JCC Nursery School class, making a mighty effort to convince them to give the day school a try.
We were very appreciative of his significant and highly personal involvement. We understood that if Albert could convince even one or two other families to enroll their children and his own son joined them, the way would be paved to the likelihood of a sustainable future. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of many, neither Albert’s son nor any of his JCC Nursery School classmates, nor any children from the synagogue nursery school, would enroll in the 2014–2015 kindergarten of Jewish Community Day School.
Rabbi Josh Lyman and the Rabbis’ Retreat. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Rabbi
Avi Warshavsky relocated to New Orleans with his family to serve as the rabbi of a modern
Orthodox congregation in Metairie. It was the Jewish institution most disrupted by the storm.
The congregation’s sanctuary was ruined, along with its seven Torah scrolls and hundreds of holy books. The congregation met seven years in the chapel of the Reform temple that housed the nursery school. Rabbi Warshavsky helped rebuild and reestablish the congregation during his tenure from 2007–2013. He was also a fixture at the day school. Rabbi Avi, as he was known, served as a member of the JCDS board, helped lead Jewish programming, advised the Head of
School and members of the Jewish Studies team, and was parent to four children enrolled in the school. His decision to depart New Orleans at the close of the 2012–2013 school year not only reduced the student population by four but also became a source of local embarrassment when the national Jewish press published a derogatory article titled, “As School Crumbles, Rabbi
Leaves City” (see Appendix C).
Another rabbi arrived in New Orleans in 2008 to serve as executive director of Tulane 70
University’s Hillel. With the vision of a social entrepreneur and innovator, he implemented user- centric, high-impact approaches to building Jewish community on campus—serving as a creative, energetic, effective, and highly respected change facilitator and consultant. His three children attended New Orleans Jewish Day School from his arrival in 2008 through the end of the 2012–2013 school year, when he and his wife transferred them to a free public charter school in Uptown New Orleans.
Rabbi Lyman, the new rabbi of the Conservative synagogue, also arrived after Katrina, in
2009, after serving successfully as an assistant camp director. He was charismatic, charming, intellectually appealing, and approachable and served as a member of the day school board. He and his wife organized their home as the community’s home, and young couples and families made it their favorite place to be. Their door was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The
Conservative synagogue was the first congregation to enjoy a resurgence in births of member babies, and the influence of the rabbinic couple cannot be overstated. They served as living compasses for an ever-expanding group of congregants and were transformational to the congregation’s post-Katrina recovery. Their older son entered the New Orleans Jewish Day
School’s kindergarten in 2011 and remained as a student for kindergarten and first grade. The child was transferred to a free advanced-placement public school for the 2012–2013 year.
Of the withdrawals of the three rabbis’ children, totaling eight, the Conservative rabbi’s decision was felt to have the greatest impact (see the earlier discussion of the prospective parents’ meeting). One of the rabbis had moved out of state and the other lived Uptown, but
Rabbi Lyman and his family lived less than one mile from the school. Their child had attended for two years, yet would not reenroll for a third. Although I personally pleaded with the rabbi and his wife to change their minds, I was unsuccessful. It was clear, given their standing and function 71 in the Jewish community, that their choice would have immediate and profound impact on the community at large, potential donors, and most significantly, on prospective families. As described earlier, none of the 12 prospective Jewish families enrolled their children in the kindergarten of 2014– 2015.
The Changing Educational Landscape of New Orleans
All parents want the very best for their children, particularly when it comes to education.
In the city of New Orleans, unlike in most of the United States, the process for assigning children to public schools is anything but straightforward. Prior to the disruption of Hurricane Katrina,
New Orleans was the second-worst school district in the United States’ second-lowest-ranked state. Since Hurricane Katrina and the demise of New Orleans’ public school system, including the firing of 7,500 public school teachers, parents who want their children to attend a public school must apply to New Orleans’ many charter schools: 89% of the city’s public schools are charter schools: publicly funded but run by private boards. According to the Louisiana
Department of Education, “Charter schools are publicly-funded schools that are run independently of the school district. Charter schools are run by a not-for profit organization governed by a board of directors comprised of parents, educators, and business leaders in the community.” New Orleans has only 6 conventional public schools left, and more than 70 charters. Parents apply to the majority of these charter schools by ranking their preferred schools on a single application known as the OneApp. However, according to multiple sources, there are only a few charter schools that parents clamor for their children to attend (Harris, Valant, &
Gross, 2015; Louisiana Department of Education, 2014). Three of these schools are not part of the OneApp system, and the hoops parents must jump through are often so discouraging that many, especially those parents who are among the traditionally underserved, do not apply. 72
It is unlikely that the public school a child attends today will be located in his or her home neighborhood. Before the storm, 35% of New Orleans students lived within a half-mile of their school. In 2011–2012, the proportion living within that radius had dropped to 10%. Even though charter schools do not provide school bus transportation, the draw of no-tuition schooling for the elementary through high school years is strong.
The educational landscape in New Orleans is unique in other ways as well. Twenty-five percent of New Orleans students attend private schools, the highest proportion of private school attendance in the United States. In addition, legacy school loyalty is deeply embedded in New
Orleans culture, as students often attend the schools attended by their parents and grandparents.
When New Orleanians ask, “Where did you go to school,” it is high school to which they are referring. For instance, I recently had dinner with a group that included four native New
Orleanians between the ages of 59 and 72. I tallied the number of times that the names of various local high schools were mentioned, and it reached 33.
New Orleans’ education landscape is incredibly stressful for parents, who are worried about the uncertainty of charter school admission and overwhelmed by the $20,000 and higher average top-tier independent school tuition. Charter schools notify parents of admission decisions during the second week of April, while the independent schools share the information during the second week of March. This effectively requires families who are financially capable to apply to both types of schools, so that if children are not accepted to the charter school of their choice, they may have an independent school back-up, acceptance to which is also not a sure thing. One of the outcomes of this labyrinth of confusion is that parents want to go through it as infrequently as possible. Whereas before Katrina JCDS was a K–8 school, when I arrived it served students only in grades kindergarten through five. In addition to its many other 73 challenges, the school’s position in the education environment and its ability to meet parents’ emotional need to avoid changing schools as much as possible were greatly diminished by our limited grade-level offerings.
Findings
The Complex Environment
Complexity leadership theory characterizes change as emerging from various positions within a complex adaptive system. Due to the very nature of complexity, one of the challenges of viewing leadership through this lens is the requirement of leaders to hone their ability to accurately perceive and identify the many agents of the system. To distinguish them all is nearly impossible. Leaders must consistently maintain awareness of their function at any given moment, either the administrative, adaptive, or enabling roles of leadership. The stairs must frequently be climbed to access the adaptive “view from the balcony,” gaining a broader view of the entire system. Complexity leadership requires paying attention to system consequences that result from the activities and positions of its agents, recognizing that not all of the agents will be known. The efficacy of any shift must be assessed in relation to its alignment with the mission of the CAS.
Enhancing and strengthening the system in pursuit of actualizing its mission must be held as the
North Star of complexity leadership theory.
New Orleans. The history of the city of New Orleans is itself complex. Disrupted throughout its development by floods, hurricanes, yellow fever epidemics, and shifting national sovereignty, New Orleans has adapted to a variety of disturbances over the course of its history.
Its culture is an amalgam of the many peoples who have made the city their home: French
Canadians, those from the Caribbean and Africa, Jews, and the artistic wonderers who have been drawn to its warmth, charm, and joie de vivre atmosphere. In addition, the history of the Jewish 74 community of New Orleans is unique to the South. While many neighboring Jewish communities were unable to survive in the face of myriad forces against them—pervasive anti-Semitism, intermarriage, and assimilation—the New Orleans Jewish community survived to become one of the most affiliated of the 20th and early 21st centuries (Rau, 1998). Seventy-five percent of
Jewish New Orleanians are affiliated with a synagogue (Weil, 2008), compared to less than one- third nationally (Lugo et al., 2013).
As a newcomer, it was critically important that I recognize the many strengths of Jewish
New Orleans and the devotion and pride residents feel for their city. I became increasingly aware that, although my initial unconscious longing may have been to recast the school as a reflection of my previous Northwestern environment, the value of opening myself to the special characteristics of Jewish New Orleans would be immeasurable in terms of my ability to become a successful leader. The more I learned about the interconnectivity of its residents to the city, the better I am able to view New Orleans itself as an active agent of the Jewish Community Day
School system. Just as in the Reggio Emilia approach to education the classroom is “the third teacher,” so too is the city of New Orleans a “third teacher” to JCDS.
Hurricane Katrina, the Great Disruptor. One cannot understate the tremendous
disruptive force of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on the city of New Orleans. The citizens
of New Orleans and its environs were deeply wounded by the failure of government’s response
at all levels in the immediate aftermath of the storm. It took the federal government 24 hours to
unlock systems of relief by declaring Katrina, and the subsequent flooding, a natural disaster.
More than 25,000 people waited an additional five days inside the horrendous environment of
the New Orleans Superdome, while still others remained stranded on rooftops and freeway
bridges waiting for systems of relief to mobilize that would deliver water, food, and medicine 75
(Comfort & Haase, 2006). At least 1,833 people died as a direct result of Hurricane Katrina, and property damage totaled an estimated $81 billion (Knabb et al., 2005).
During and after the storm, administrative leadership was nonexistent. Adaptive leadership was impossible because all communication systems had been disabled by the storm.
There was no balcony to climb to that would allow leaders to take in the view above the action to gain perspective (Heifitz & Laurie, 2001). There was no possible means of creating the space between the structural administrative and enabling adaptive leadership functions that would create an interface for the dynamic tension to support the emergence of enabling leadership. A consequence over time of this leadership chasm was an ongoing state of disequilibrium. As a result, as days and weeks passed, “leaders came out of the woodwork, fracturing the insular networks that had characterized New Orleans for some time,” according to Tim Williamson, co- founder and CEO of the Idea Village, a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to identify, support, and retain entrepreneurial talent in New Orleans.
One of the great emergences facilitated by the storm’s disruption was the transformation of the public school system into a charter school system. Before Katrina, the majority of public schools were at best ineffective. In 2005 the city ranked 67th out of 68 districts in Louisiana, which itself was a low performer compared to other U.S. states. Some 62% of New Orleans public school students attended schools rated as “failing” by the state, and only 35% percent of students scored at grade level or above on state standardized tests. Before Katrina, almost half of
New Orleans public school students dropped out before graduating, and less than one in five went on to college. Before Katrina, any family who could send their child to a private school did so. The sorry state of the public school system was a boon for all private schools, both independent and parochial. “Almost no one went to public schools,” reported a JCDS staff 76 member. “My children and most of my friends’ children went to private school. Even if it was a stretch to pay the tuition, we were committed to making sure they got an education that would get them into a good college.”
The New Orleans charter school boom arose in the emergent environment that followed the storm. In the wake of Katrina, the Orleans Parish School Board fired its 7,500 employees, and only about one-third of them were rehired. Those who favor the charter school system point to the empowerment that individual school leadership provides. Principals may allocate funds according to their educational strategies, handpick new hires, and release low-performing teachers from their contracts without fear of litigation. Test scores have dramatically improved, and any socioeconomic stigma related to sending a child to a public school has been eradicated.
“Having our kids go to a charter school means we can take family vacations and save for college.
That’s not the case if they go to private school,” reports one parent. The parents of Greater New
Orleans have flocked to the new charter schools, entering lotteries and keeping fingers crossed that their children gain entry into the best ones. From the broad perspective offered by the balcony of the Jewish Community Day School, the charter school movement is hard to miss.
People
“Like the flapping kookaburra in Australia that sets off a tornado in Kansas, people
operate under their own version of chaos theory; the unpredictable effects of remote,
sometimes forgotten causes.” (Weinberger, 2003)
Schools, inherent to their nature, are systems made up of diverse agents such as students, teachers, and families connected by relationships and are nested in a network structure that includes larger systems, such as the local community and its educational landscape (Epstein, 77
2011). By reframing the individuals of the local community as agents of the complex adaptive system called Jewish Community Day School, I shifted my perspective on my engagement with others. When meeting the New Orleanians around me, rather than merely aiming to build relationships based on myself as an individual, I framed my interactions with others through the lens of complexity theory and viewed each as an agent of the complex adaptive system known as
JCDS; I viewed each as a member of our CAS. The residents of New Orleans would necessarily view me as the face of the school, because they were acquainted with me in no other context. I, in turn, would never have come to know them were it not for the school. Complexity leadership theory places actors inside the CAS, rather than assuming they are acting outside of, and on, the system (Hazy & Uhl-Bien, 2013). It was my perspective that each and every member of the
Greater New Orleans Jewish community was a part of the school environment, a potential
“kookaburra flapping its arms,” and that the fluctuation initiated by this movement could influence the school. In this chapter I highlighted four individuals whose actions visibly and distinctly fostered an emergent reaction by the school, but there are many others about whom I have not written. These include teachers, staff, parents, Jewish communal professionals, Jewish community lay leaders, members of the Jewish Community Day School board of directors, former supporters of the school, alumni and their families, and prospective parents. In an ever- expanding frame, each may be recognized as an agent of the complex adaptive system known as
Jewish Community Day School, causing fluctuations that foster the emergence of something that had not previously existed. Feedback from the system—whether or not a shift was or was not in alignment with our mission—would determine if the adaptation could be embraced or must be discarded. 78
Figure 3. An Ever-Expanding Frame of CAS Agents
Conclusion
This autoethnographic study placed me, as researcher, in the midst of buffeting fluctuations to the complex adaptive system known as Jewish Community Day School. I framed myself as leader of the CAS using the paradigm of complexity leadership theory and collected data for this study over the course of 15 months. At the conclusion of this period of time, I have come to believe that complexity leadership theory is “good to think with” (Mcquillan, 2008).
This paradigm allowed me to view myriad components as agents of the school as system. Along with everyone else, I too am an agent of the school. I am a disrupter. Fresh to New Orleans, I arrived with little historical background or connection to the city. Even so, I staunchly committed myself to the mission of the school. That mission became my North Star. I posted it everywhere—on classroom doors, in hallways, on every board report, and in publications. As various agents filtered through the CAS, the worth of each was determined by assessing, as best we could, its value to our mission. The implementation of complexity leadership theory segued seamlessly into the school’s educational philosophy that stresses the importance of teaching what are known as “21st century skills”: collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. These skills, or characteristics, rely on proximity to others, either physically or virtually, and on creating connections between others to collectively and creatively problem 79 solve, often by advancing something new. The Jewish value of “B’Tzelem Elokim,” that every person is created in God’s image and therefore inherently worthy of respect, also fits well into the paradigm of complexity: Every agent matters. These philosophical foundations of JCDS complement complexity leadership theory’s orientation to viewing everything as connected and that the system is greater than the individual sum of its parts. The frame of complexity offers a means to conceptualize the school as a nonlinear system in which an array of diverse agents, those closer to the center as well as those farther from the core, interact with and influence one another (Lewin, 1999). Through feedback loops on the impact of agents and promoting adaptations that in turn transform their behavior in response, complex systems adapt and endure
(Hoban, 2002). Within the context of complexity leadership theory, nothing and no person stand alone: Everything interconnects.
Chapter Five: Discussion of Research Findings
Introduction
Judaism, beginning with its very first texts, has consistently made the value on teaching and learning central to our tradition. “Teach them diligently to your children” is the biblical instruction of Deuteronomy 6:4. In the summer of 2013 the Jewish Federation of Greater New
Orleans initiated a feasibility study to ascertain Community Day School’s potential as a sustainable community institution. Its findings would guide the future of New Orleans’ Jewish community’s investment in its day school. The catalyst for the study was a dramatic change in school population and demographics. Enrollment had risen consistently for three years, steadily increasing following the traumas of Hurricane Katrina and largely supported by dramatic tuition subsidies made possible through post-Katrina grants from national Jewish organizations. 80
Suddenly, in a two year period, enrollment numbers plummeted by 48%, from an enrollment of
51 in 2011–2012 to just 27 for 2013–2014. The community wanted to know why this had happened and if there was a way to turn the school around.
A thriving Jewish day school is an essential element of a flourishing Jewish community.
Particularly in smaller communities such as New Orleans, Jewish day schools are able to play
roles that extend beyond the lives of their own student body, often serving as a hub for
community connection and engagement (Pomson, 2007). The aim of this autoethnographic study
was to explore my journey as leader of the Jewish Community Day School of Greater New
Orleans during the time the community endeavored to change the school’s precarious position,
from teetering on the edge of impending closure toward feasibility and sustainability. For this
qualitative study, I focused on my own experience as leader of the school, and my study has
embraced the story of my work. Via writing, my own experience has served as a bridge between
myself as protagonist and the numerous others, or agents, that are also a part of the story
(Adams, Jones, & Ellis, 2015).
In this chapter I revisit the research question and subquestion in the form of three
reflexive vignettes. I then summarize the findings of this autoethnographic study through the lens
of complexity leadership theory. Finally, I discuss implications for current practice and future
study.
Research Questions
The central question of this study is: What is the lived experience of the leader of a school on the edge of chaos? 81
Subquestion: How does the lens of complex adaptive leadership influence leadership thinking?
Autoethnography as Methodology: Three Vignettes
“Honest autoethnographic exploration generates a lot of fears and self-doubt and
emotional pain… Then there is the vulnerability of revealing yourself, not being able to
take back what you’ve written or having any control over how readers interpret your
story.” (Ellis, 2004)
Reflexive ethnographies document ways a researcher changes as a result of doing
fieldwork (Ellis, 2004). I became aware, very early in the course of both my research and my
work, that if I were to do the best I could, I would be required to make myself vulnerable. In
committing to write this autoethnography, I understood that I would be providing access to
sensitive issues and my innermost thoughts (Ellis, 2009). I would have to provide a window into
both my mind and my emotions through my writing in order to evoke in readers a sense that the
experiences I described were lifelike, believable, and possible; in other words, a feeling that what
has been represented could be true (Plummer, 2001).
Autoethnographers aim to blend the representation (graphy) of the cultural (ethno) and
the self (auto) to create a unique study along a continuum of emphasis. Data collection for this
autoethnographic study, therefore, merged thick description of the cultural milieu in which the
research takes place—the ‘ethnographic wide-angle lens’—along with my own reflections upon
them, to look inward.
Over the course of about 15 months, from the time I arrived in New Orleans in July 2013
through October 2014, I developed the habit of nightly reflection in the form of brief journal 82 entries. In these field notes I considered the events of the day and the people with whom I had interacted. I framed these experiences through the lens of complexity theory, which I discuss later in this chapter. Some interpersonal moments were more difficult than others. I had not been to New Orleans before my two-day on-site interview visit. My brief stay was a whirlwind of introductions to teachers, staff, parents, and community leaders. During the time of this study, I felt displaced and overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of the New Orleans environment and I frequently wrote about this. One such journal entry reads, “I know that it takes three years to actually feel you belong somewhere. I hope I can last until then. Everyone I encounter smiles warmly and politely but I don’t even need to use all of the fingers on one hand to count the number of people who have invited me for Shabbat dinner.” I felt atmospheric warmth in New
Orleans, but not a personal one. I wondered whether I had the skills and the stamina to take on what I knew would be a substantial challenge.
The Rabbi and the Nursery School
One of the factors that drew me to the Head of School position was an assumption I had made regarding the school’s lack of deeply embedded systems and traditions that would have to be overcome. Because the school was in such disarray, I imagined I would be able to bring all of my experience, skills, talents, and creativity to the work with few, if any, barriers to my plans.
Early in my New Orleans tenure, I attended a community professional leaders’ lunch. Seated across from me that afternoon at the local Jewish deli was one of the local rabbis. He was also a member of the JCDS Board of Directors. He leaned forward, and quietly said, “Now that you’re in New Orleans, this will be your shlichut.” He smiled and returned his attention to his sandwich.
It was a deeply moving moment for me. “Shlichut” is defined here as a Hebrew word meaning purposeful outreach, with service and intention. The rabbi’s words comforted and reassured me 83 that I had made a good decision. In that moment, I felt more settled and clearer about my New
Orleans purpose. I enjoyed a sense of calm from the interaction.
Yet, it was only a few months later that the same rabbi strode into my office and efficiently closed the door behind him. He sat in a chair across from my desk and said, “If you think you’re going to open a nursery school here, you are sadly mistaken. We have an agreement with the community; our nursery school will be the only nursery school in this area. There was an agreement made when this building was built, and we all shook hands. If you try to break that agreement, you will feel the full weight of this community. Believe me, you won’t like it. The agreement is like a vow, and you very well know what a vow means in Judaism.” He strode out and left me shaken to my core. Here I was, a woman alone behind a closed door with a powerful male rabbi, with no witness and no recourse. With his discussion of breaking a vow, he had implied that I would be considered a sinner if I led an effort to create a nursery school. It was a uniquely humiliating and fearful experience. I sat, stunned, for a very long time after he left the room.
I had realized from the first that our day school needed a preschool to survive. This is true of all Jewish day schools. They either need an on-site early childhood program or productive relationships with area Jewish nursery schools to serve as trustworthy, consistent feeders. We were getting little to no interest from the two Jewish nursery schools in the area— one nearby and the other in the Uptown area, a distance from JCDS.
In the first couple of months of my tenure as Head of School, I sought out various community stakeholders for informal chats. My habit was to throw out various thoughts about the school and its future with the intent of seeing where they landed, observing what might shake 84 loose or be disrupted by my thoughts and words. I joked with them about my style of thinking, saying that I was “Jackson Pollocking”—tossing ideas onto a canvas and seeing what might stick. In truth, as I was leading through the lens of complexity theory, my intention was to cause small disturbances. Each of the ideas I sprinkled about was based on solid data about what
Jewish day schools need to thrive: I also threw out ideas suggested by our consultant and still others based on my own study and experience. I hoped that those with whom I spoke would find it stimulating to explore a variety of scenarios that might serve as catalysts for the school’s reemergence.
My aim at the time was to find a way to add a nursery school program to JCDS’s elementary school. A few weeks into my tenure, I had spoken with the JCC’s executive director about adding a JCC satellite preschool to our building. Her nursery school director and I could work out the details, and potentially we could have a collaboration that would benefit everyone.
She received my inquiry positively. I conferred with the executive director of the Jewish
Federation, and he spoke to his lay leadership. They, too, were excited about exploring the idea.
A meeting was held. Seated at the table were the lay and professional leadership of the Jewish
Federation and of two of its four constituent agencies, the Jewish Community Day School and the Jewish Community Center. I opened the meeting by reviewing my thinking about a collaborative nursery school venture between the JCC and JCDS. Such a venture would benefit both agencies and, more importantly, children and families. “Sharon,” the JCC executive director interrupted. “This is not going to happen. There is an agreement in place that precludes there ever being a nursery school in the school building. I am a member of the temple that houses one, my own kids went to that nursery school, and I’m not going to do anything to harm them.” 85
I was stunned. “But,” I said and I tried to remain calm, “we’ve talked about this. You seemed to think it was a good idea and so did your nursery school director.”
“It may or may not be a good idea, but it doesn’t matter,” she replied. “It’s not happening. As long as I am executive director of the JCC, it will never happen.”
Even as I write this, I cringe with embarrassment. I vividly recall the look of pity in the eyes of the president of the Federation. I remember his look even more than the rest of the conversation that took place around that table, which was a blend of care, concern, and sympathy. I seemed to be the only meeting participant who was surprised. The evening’s conversation was brief. The meeting soon broke up, each person mumbling a good-bye as he or she made for the door. Shortly thereafter, the rabbi’s visit to my office, described earlier, occurred. I reported the incident to the executive director of the Federation. “You need to be more lady-like,” he told me.
Faculty and Staff
All parents want the very best for their children. No matter the cultural benefits, if the academics are below their expectations, they will leave the school. As I began to familiarize myself with the school, it was faculty and staff whom I focused on first, because these individuals formed the innermost circle around the core of the school; they carried out its mission, and they had relationships with one another, with students and their families, and with the broader community. Some were deeply embedded in New Orleans and committed to remaining in the city. Others were less anchored in place. I met with each individually to get to know them. The first reaction of many to me was surprise: surprise that I had come from so far away and from such a different culture (they identified me as from the Left Coast) and surprise 86 that I was there at all. Just as they were surprised by me, I was surprised by them, particularly by the differences in educational training and philosophy between my new colleagues and me. I found them to be a mostly traditional bunch, relying on textbooks to drive their practice and dividing the day into short periods of time devoted to each subject. I am a product of a Bank
Street College education, where I had earned my master’s degree in education supervision and administration. Founded in New York City in 1916 by the progressive educator Lucy Sprague
Mitchell, it was originally called the Bureau of Educational Experiments. At that time, Bank
Street was a nursery school staffed by researchers and psychologists who worked to craft the best learning environments for children. Now a graduate school of education, a school for children, and the initiator of innovative programs benefiting children and families, Bank Street implements the philosophy that education is experience based, interdisciplinary, and collaborative, with an emphasis on educating the whole child and deeply valuing the creation of broad and reciprocal pathways for parent-to-school connections.
The faculty had anticipated that the school’s guidance counselor would serve as principal while the Jewish studies teacher would lead the Jewish studies program. Hence, my very presence was disruptive. I furthered the disruption by letting two staff members know that I would release them from their contracts, the first being the guidance counselor and the second, a novice teacher. During my first several months at the school I had attempted to consciously explain myself and to provide evidence-based reasons for teachers to consider other ways of teaching. I began our first faculty in-service session with a gentle disruption designed to help us intermingle. We created a collaborative piece of art describing what we love about teaching, learning, children, and the school. The teachers and I enjoyed it; we had done something fun and nonthreatening organized around our practice. We recognized our shared values. 87
I then initiated weekly faculty meetings during which we could discuss our practice.
Before this, faculty meetings had been held monthly. We read books together. The subject of the first one was only slightly personal, because it had to do with physical space; it was Classroom
Spaces that Work, from the Responsive Classroom series. We followed the reading by engaging in a mini “field study,” visiting each other’s classrooms to consider these questions: How do children experience this room? Is it organized in a manner that reflects our desire to support their developing independence? Is this a space that shouts, “This space was made for you”?” The teachers were at first hesitant to express their thoughts. They did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But I pushed, disrupting the equilibrium by asking would they not appreciate getting feedback from others who were just as committed as they were to ensuring student success. This was a turning point: From then on, the majority of teachers were “in.” They recognized that comments were not personal, but that our shared goal was to ensure the best possible education for our students and that, through collaboration, communication, and creating a supportive environment in which to take risks—just as we do for children—we would help each other get there. Only one teacher could not get on board. She found a teaching position in a Catholic school at the end of the year.
The next member of the staff I discuss here was a beloved fixture of the school, the director of admissions, Mrs. Liz Miller. She had been with the school for the previous 10 years; originally hired as the admissions and development director, the scope of her work would be better described as office and enrollment manager. Parents, children, and teachers all adored her.
She was “the glue that everything together.” She paid attention to every detail in the entire school and anticipated needs before they were identified. A native of New Orleans, she was charming and had a smile that made everything feel better. Liz was a hard worker and aimed to 88 please. As we began to strategize for an uptick in recruitment, however, her frequent response to any recruitment proposal I pitched was, “Well. We never did that before. This is the way we always do it.” Of course, my reply to her was that doing the same thing while expecting a different result was the definition of insanity. Liz did not much care for that response. Disrupting the balance of this kind, devoted woman was not something I relished. I recognized it had to be done, but I wasn’t certain how to go about it. And then came Linda.
The Lioness and the Mama Bear
Linda Levinksy (described in the section, “Agents of Change: Year One”) returned to
New Orleans from her family’s evacuation to Chicago in January 2014. Initially on the school’s board of directors, Linda was asked to join the JCDS staff as marketing director when a maternity leave opening became available. As a former top development professional with the
Red Cross, she was used to having a staff; she was used to having the people around her listen to her and take direction from her. Before hiring her, I had explained the situation of our lack of support staff. “No one else is going to make copies for you, Linda,” I said. “You’ll have to answer the phone sometimes, put bandages on boo-boo’s, and every now and then deliver a lunch. Plus you’ll have carpool duty.” Linda blinked but, even with these conditions, agreed to take the job. She was excited, had many terrific ideas, and was deeply committed to the school’s success.
Linda came into our small group with a roar, and after a few days, Liz, the beloved admissions director, went into hibernation. She emerged as infrequently as possible from her office, strategizing to avoid Linda as best she could. Indeed, some may find Linda a bit abrupt.
She can rub people the wrong way and can be a bit snappier with those who work “for” her than 89 with those with whom she socializes. She, like Liz, is sensitive and takes just about everything very personally. Each of these women is diligent, caring, and a reliable worker. Here, between these two important agents of our complex adaptive system, was disruption of our internal environment that was visible and palpable. As a practitioner of complexity leadership, I asked myself, “Is there a way this disruption might be guided in a direction to benefit the school? If so, do I have the stamina for it?”
Nooteboom and Termeer (2013) focused their investigation on leadership strategies that have the potential to become embedded practices within an organization. Their study examined those deliberate actions taken by multiple leaders within the configuration deployed to foster innovation within organizations as complex adaptive systems. The results of the study suggest that there are indeed specific strategies of successful complexity leadership. Flexibility is a key trait, enabling leaders to nimbly shift between administrative, adaptive, and enabling leadership functions. My practice of this trait became a serious focus. I understood that I would need to be as flexible as a gymnast and as nimble as a smile to move our organization toward our aim of reorienting the trajectory of JCDS toward sustainability. I worked to enable Linda and to help
Liz understand the value of adaptive behaviors. Linda’s disposition as a strong, confident woman, as well as her insight and creativity, made the endeavor possible. To Liz, I offered validation of her feelings of displacement and frustration, even as I encouraged her to give
Linda’s ideas a try. I coaxed Linda into awareness of Liz’s feelings and urged her to soften her tone. None of my administrative strategies were absolutely effective, but it seems, on reflection, that they were a good start.
Liz tried out some new recruitment strategies crafted by Linda. In one of her earliest efforts she sent a large number of Open House postcards to prospective families and then made 90
100 personal follow-up phone calls, something she had never done before. Although by other schools’ open house attendance measures our results may have been modest, in terms of emergence, the outcome was significant. An unanticipated result of Liz’s phone calls was the opportunity it gave her to connect with families beyond her immediate periphery. These people could now be viewed as agents of the school. Perhaps they would tell a friend about their nice conversation with Liz, and this action on her part could lead to unanticipated, positive outcomes.
I learned later, during the course of a conversation with her, that Liz had dreaded the prospect of calling prospective parents. Her fear was that they would hang up on her. She was surprised and delighted that this did not happen even once. Liz took what was, for her, a huge risk in making those calls, and she came through the experience not only unscathed but enriched.
In our debriefing of the project she reported that, unexpectedly, she had actually enjoyed talking to people about the school and that everyone, even those who were highly unlikely to ever enroll, had been glad to speak with her. The conversations validated her own role as a well-known and well-liked member of the community. As a result of this shift in her practice, Liz became more willing to take other risks on behalf of the school. Meanwhile, Linda went on to create, coordinate, and actualize two transformational marketing initiatives. The first was the change to the school’s name and logo, the reaction to which could almost be heard from the community as a deep, collective sigh of relief. The second was her meaningful and highly effective, “We
Believe” campaign. These were discussed in the previous chapter.
Complexity Leadership Theory Revisited
Complexity leadership theory frames organizations as nonlinear, uncertain, dynamic, and relationship based (Crowell, 2011). As a theoretical paradigm, it posits that innovation and 91 experimentation are most likely to occur when an organization is near the brink of the abyss or, in other words, “surfing the edge” of chaos. Complex adaptive systems (CASs) function on the edge of chaos, on the point between linear predictability and complete chaos at which a system is at its most creative, imaginative, and adaptable (Morrison, 2010; Waldrop, 1992).
Complexity leadership theory is based on several core ideas. First, a CAS in a state of equilibrium is less responsive to changes taking place around it and more likely to strive to maintain that equilibrium. Innovation usually takes place on the edge of chaos. In the face of disruption or threat, the ensuing chaos creates an environment that fosters emergence, an environment from which something new and unpredictable may arise. Agents of the CAS shift and recombine to create something altered or new. Finally, feedback loops provide information that determines whether or not the new systems or forms are desirable or should be discarded. In a school, these loops reflect its mission and vision.
The three leadership components that comprise complexity leadership theory are administrative, which keeps the organization functioning day to day; adaptive, in which leadership frequently steps onto the balcony to view the system from a broader perspective; and enabling, in which the disruption of equilibrium is viewed positively as an initiator of creativity.
Complexity leadership theory understands that complex adaptive systems can only be disturbed; they cannot be directed along a linear path, although they may be coaxed toward a desired outcome. Inherent to this paradigm, unforeseen circumstances will always occur. Therefore, according to complexity leadership theory, the best approach is to "disturb" the system in the direction of the desired outcome. Lichtenstein and Plowman (2009) writes that “punctuated disequilibrium” in systems should be viewed in a positive light, because these fluctuations have 92 the capacity to stimulate adaptive behaviors necessary for innovation and success and foster the production of emergent outcomes.
Vignettes: Viewed Through the Lens of Complexity
When I arrived in New Orleans, I expected that the disruptive events I would have to deal with were Hurricane Katrina and those directly related to its aftermath. I anticipated that the shuttering of the school, the loss of evacuated students and families, and the struggle to reorganize within a changing demographic environment would be the core challenges I would face. I imagined that I would be the source of small, manageable disruptions that would move the school forward to its aim of feasibility and sustainability. But I had not realized the extent of the wounds from recent changes the school had been through or the tenderness of the skin that covered them. It soon became clear to me that I was also an agent, and I would experience feedback from the complex adaptive systems known as Community Day School and the New
Orleans Jewish community (see Figure 4).
Emergence Anxiety
I had been brought to New Orleans to help shift the school’s position from surfing on the edge of chaos to riding a strong wave to shore. Although intellectually I was aware that change would be difficult, it was impossible to predict what my own experience as a change agent would be. I walked into the school with great cautiousness. I understood that it, and the people within the organization, had been through disruption times two. The first was Hurricane Katrina. JCDS had only recently reorganized from that event and had been heading in a positive direction.
However, the change of the school name, the departure of Dr. Paul Marshall, and events that followed amounted to a second disruptive event. I had made the naïve mistake that, because the 93 community had expressly brought me in to change the school, the community would be open to shifts I might suggest. I was wrong.
Because complexity leadership has to do with the processes of fostering conditions of emergence, one of the key challenges for leaders employing this paradigm is to effectively gauge and manage outcomes of disruption, while lacking the ability to linearly control those paths. An additional significant challenge, one that was brought to light for me during my initial attempt to bring an early childhood program into the school, is that complexity leaders must have an awareness of various complex adaptive systems that may overlap their own. I berate myself for my lack of sensitivity to the potential response to the change I had proposed: creating a collaborative nursery school program on our campus. Even while acknowledging that disequilibrium is a condition that does foster emergence, the human desire to avoid the anxiety experienced in response to disruption or change is critical when considering the characteristics of organizational disequilibrium (Morgan, 1997; Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001).
94
EMERGENCE
Feedback Loop Feedback Loop
Enabling Leadership
Vision Creative Composting Collaboration
Adaptive Leadership
Adaptability Innovation
Administrative Leadership
Structure Management Resources
Feedback Loop Feedback Loop MISSION Agents
COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM: Jewish Community Day School
Figure 4. Jewish Community Day School as a Complex Adaptive System
95
The Human Element
In a complex adaptive system that is comprised primarily of people, the element of human nature is a key component of the processes of emergence and must always be taken into account (Mcquillan, 2008). At first fervently unwelcome, the small series of interactions described in the vignettes earlier may certainly be defined as disruptive leadership events.
Complexity leadership theory positions the connection between disruption and emergence as nonlinear and unpredictable. The emergent behavior is difficult to predict, even when subsystem behavior is readily predictable (Ferreira, 2001). In retrospect, had I viewed the group of community leaders with whom I was meeting to discuss a potential JCDS nursery school program as agents of the CAS known as “New Orleans Jewish community leadership,” I might have been able to anticipate a measure of that subsystem behavior. However, as I now reflect on that disruptive event, it is clear that that one small change in input—our conversation—might well yet produce large changes in behavior.
Creative Composting and Unpredictable Outcomes
Nearly a year after the early childhood conversation, the Jewish Federation became involved in working to ensure that the nursery school across the street in the Reform temple would more effectively function as a feeder to JCDS. The community recognized that there were two competing needs: an income stream to the temple from its nursery school and a reliable early childhood feeder to the school. The Federation set about to find a way to fuse these needs for the benefit of all. Several meetings were held over a period of many months during both the temple and JCDS were broadly represented. Intentionally organized around the shared goals of achieving each organization’s success, these meetings, by bringing these agents together, 96 encouraged their co-mingling and fostered an environment that invited their interaction. That this diverse group sat around a table discussing a shared future was itself an unpredictable outcome of my initial conversational disruption of the system. Ideas and suggestions were put forward from multiple individuals. Could one leader run both schools? Could the Federation fill any financial gap the temple might have as a result of combining schools? What types of bridges could be built? Could there be coordinated professional development or parent programming?
There were periods of at least several weeks between the meetings, a time for the recommendations to flow through the feedback loops of the system. I think of these periods of overt inactivity as times of creative composting, a fertile space in time where disruption may rest, and where careful attention to the aims of the system will determine what will or will not take root. At the date of this writing, JCDS does not have an early childhood program. However, in alignment with our aim to bring more young families into our building, and because the temple nursery school does not serve babies under the age of 15 months, we were able to open an infant program for babies aged 3–15 months. Several of the temple’s nursery school teachers have toured JCDS. A few have not, and recognizing that change does not happen immediately or all at once, we are giving them the time and space to move at a slower pace. The professional leaders of the two schools have attended each other’s various events, and JCDS was given access to the nursery school’s family directory. This last was an enormous and unexpected shift in behavior, something that had not been accomplished in 20 years, and it has enabled us to directly connect with nursery school families.
As the 15 months of this autoethnographic study drew to a close, I became aware that closed-door meetings were taking place among the lay and professional leadership of the Jewish
Federation, the board president of JCDS, and the rabbi of the nursery school’s synagogue. I do 97
not know the specific content of these discussions. However, I do know that the aims of each
complex adaptive system have not shifted and that the sustenance and success of both Jewish
Community Day School and of the temple are feasible. I wait with curiosity to view what may
emerge from behind the conference room door.
Implications for Current Practice
It has been thrilling for me to learn about and practice complexity leadership theory. My study has transformed the way I see the world, in addition to the way I view my professional practice as a school leader. Specifically, I have come to understand that some of the most beneficial outcomes will not be brought about via a linear map or plan. Rather, rich interactions with others around me act as nourishment to our shared aims. Complexity leadership theory has helped me understand that leadership is a practice and a function that transpire in interaction with other living systems, human or otherwise. The Jewish Community Day School is a complex adaptive system comprised of and residing in the midst of other complex adaptive systems.
Complexity leadership theory is organized around the concepts of chaos and emergence. It is the understanding that even the smallest changes in the environment may serve as disruptors to the equilibrium of a complex adaptive system that is most intriguing to me as I consider my leadership practice. Such disruption potentially pushes the CAS known as the Jewish Community
Day School beyond its current boundaries to foster an environment that is ripe for emergence.
Within the framework of complexity leadership theory, I, as leader, am called on to a practice that is interactive, transparent, and inclusive in nature. As Head of School, one of my core responsibilities is to always have the mission of the school in view. Thus, even in midst of myriad duties, it is incumbent on me to take time to climb the stairs to our virtual balcony, to 98 pause, and to pay attention to the movement of the many agents before me. I am called on to design opportunities for the agents of the system to interact. From this perspective, leadership offers—indeed, requires—the participation and empowerment of others. The intermingling of various agents as they travel through the system’s feedback loops fosters an emergent environment.
To actualize these concepts, one of the most important roles I play as leader is that of designer of opportunities for interaction. I offer support for “the having of wonderful ideas”
(Duckworth, 2006). I operate with a high degree of transparency, whether with our board of directors, staff, families, or funders. I share my leadership problems, my challenges, and my dreams for the school. I view these as small disruptions that energize the agents of our complex adaptive system. I pull back from controlling behavior so that, as a collaborative system, we may together try out new ideas and approaches. I work to provide space to make adjustments to innovations. I am aware that it is a balancing act; that people are emotional beings; and that to avoid causing paralysis, I must not push so hard that anyone falls over the edge. A component of my practice that I see as critical is that the complex adaptive system must have time for what I have come to call “creative composting.” This is a necessary dampening of the complex adaptive process so that emergent change does not blow the system out of its orbit. I understand that a pause must take place so that we, as a system, have the opportunity to evaluate its impact and to make adjustments as needed.
My immersion in this paradigm has inspired in me new ways of thinking about leadership and reinforced my belief that the sum is greater than its parts. By fostering small disruptive events I believe I am supporting the creation of conditions that are ripe for emergence. In addition to finding the time for these interactive opportunities, it is my responsibility to ensure 99 that there are safe spaces within our system, spaces where innovations may be pitched, created, and tweaked. It is essential that the mission of JCDS constantly be visible and be the consistent aim of the school. My view of disruption to my own plans has also shifted. I find myself more flexible, more willing to imagine alternatives, and more open to discerning possibilities. I make time to step away from the fray, to climb to a perch on the balcony, viewing from above the complex kaleidoscope of the complex adaptive system that is Jewish Community Day School, the many agents and systems of which it is a part, and those that surround it.
Suggestions for Further Research
Complexity Leadership Theory
Schools inherently are systems made up of diverse agents such as students, teachers, and
families, connected by relationships, and nested in a network structure that includes larger
systems, such as the local community and its educational landscape (Epstein, 2011). Schools are
influenced by both small and large internal and external shifts that can produce enormous effect,
and the outcomes that result from the combinations of their various agents are greater and richer
than what is possible from a single individual (Morrison, 2002). Schools, as complex adaptive
systems, scan and respond to the external environment, both natural and manufactured, by
making internal adjustments and developments to meet the demands of that changing external
environment (Waldrop, 1992). If the school is perceived as a complex adaptive system, teachers
may be viewed as networked agents of that system. Environmental imperatives will always
include the need to continually assess student achievement and its connection to curriculum and
teacher efficacy; change, even if only a subtle adjustment, is a constant for school excellence.
Because this is the case, what might be the impact of complexity leadership as a method of 100 maintaining an atmosphere that is ripe for emergence? Small internal perturbations that are designed to generate adaptive change may support the school-as-system as being in a state of readiness to explore and embrace change to benefit students. Disequilibrium may arise from a variety of sources, both intentional and not.
Teacher teams, whether departmental or by grade, have been a standard practice in schools for many years and may be considered a functioning network of a school. When utilized as professional development forums, these team networks may help create an emergent atmosphere as individual teacher-agents share diverse points of view, pedagogy, and their own ways of learning. A practice that sends teachers out to learn beyond the safety of the home network, and then to return to share their experiences with the in-school network, is one example of planned disruption designed to guide the school on its path of continuous development (Morris,
Crispeels, & Burke, 2003). Diverse points of view and new resources and ideas shift equilibrium and disrupt the status quo. Such practice, then, supports adaptive change as system disruption encourages internal networked agents to interact in different ways, expanding the capacity of the system.
A school’s board is another internal networked system, and board members themselves tend to be agents of a variety of networks. It would be useful to investigate the outcomes of purposefully disrupting the system's status quo by deliberately sending out members of the internal network to interact with external agents, thus bringing new ideas and resources back into the internal network. Such studies would yield understanding about the impact of an embedded practice designed to foster disequilibrium and therefore an atmosphere of emergence.
Autoethnography 101
Kierkegaard (1843) writes that life must be lived forward, yet can only be understood when looking back. Autoethnography is a qualitative research method in which data from one’s own lived experience are situated in a sociocultural context that invites reflection on experience as it occurs and when it has passed (Chang, 2008). Autoethnographers seek to gain an understanding of a particular societal issue through the unique lens of self, an understanding that is woven by the connectivity of the self and others (Bochner & Ellis, 2003).
The autoethnography I have written reflects my own experience as the leader of a Jewish day school “surfing the edge” (Pascale et al., 2000) of sustainability. As an autoethnographer I have embraced my dual roles of researcher and participant in this study. Autoethnography has given me permission to bring myself into this research and encouraged a practice of regularly scheduled moments of deep reflective, analytic thought. This process has encouraged me to visualize our current system, to identify agents, to note disruptions, to be aware of shifts, and to discern emergences, no matter how great or small. The autoethnographic practice has, I believe, helped be become a more effective leader, as I tell stories that shed light on my choices, behaviors, actions, and decisions (Chang, Ngunjiri, & Hernandez, 2013).
As I consider suggestions for further research, I am drawn to the practice of collaborative autoethnography as a tool for strengthening professional learning networks. Situated similarly to action research, collaborative autoethnography has the benefit of a built-in pool of participants.
However, this methodology changes the usual research dynamic by changing the traditional relationship between researcher and study participants, which is inherently unequal Chang et al.
(2013). The researcher possesses the power to interview as participants are framed as responders.
The interviewer organizes and analyzes data and represents the responses of participants.
Collaborative inquiry, in contrast, supports the habits of mind we teach in schools as part of a 102
21st- century skill set. A team approach encourages researchers to pool their resources and to function as both data gatherers and interpreters. Collaboration stimulates critical thinking and invites the sharing of multiple perspectives. Collaborative autoethnography thus has the potential to strengthen internal school networks, as teachers and other agents of the school come to understand the perspectives of others in relation to particular professional development initiatives. It may stimulate a cultural shift in practice as it encourages teachers to reveal their own experience at the same time as they view that of others.
Conclusion
The research problem I studied over a period of approximately 15 months is my experience as leader of the Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans. This study took place during a critical moment in the life of the school, one that found it “surfing the edge” as it endeavored to achieve viability and strength. I selected autoethnography as my research methodology, a qualitative method that links elements of the ethnographic and autobiographic disciplines and is a fine distillation of the two. In their discussion of the autoethnographic method Ellis, Adams, and Bochner (2011) address the potential emotional impact of this methodology on the autoethnographer and on the ways in which the interviewer may have been changed by the process. Writing this study has changed me. It has influenced my perspectives of my work and of this community. As I have situated myself in its midst, I have become a part of its historical journey. My practice as an education leader, and particularly as the leader of a
Jewish day school, has become more reflective. My curiosity has grown; I have become much more interested in the individual Jewish journeys of New Orleanians as they are situated within the culture of their unique city. 103
The paradigm through which I viewed the work of this study is complexity leadership theory. This leadership lens is a good fit for me. One of its requirements is flexibility, and I possess that characteristic in spades, even as I remain grounded by the mission of our school. I am able to successfully function within the three dynamics of complexity leadership: administrative, adaptive and enabling. I find myself energized and calm, similar to a post- meditative state, when I return from a visit to the balcony that provides a removed view of our school-as-system. I delight in collaborative efforts toward a shared aim and have a heightened awareness of myriad agents within and surrounding the complex adaptive system that is Jewish
Community Day School. I visualize the system as a kaleidoscope with Jewish Community Day
School at its center, the agents of emergence kindled by small and large shifts made by the tube that frames it. I find myself more likely to take the risk of disruption and to encourage multiple points of view.
By way of an epilogue, the shifts in my practice as leader of Jewish Community Day
School seem to have had a beneficial effect. We are noting growing support from the New
Orleans Jewish community and an increase in new student enrollment. Our Board of Directors is a highly functioning, working board, each member doing the hands-on work of fundraising and friend-raising. We anticipate a student attrition rate of less than 10% for the coming year, which represents a meaningful increase in the number of students returning. Our Parent Association has taken small steps to become more effective. Most importantly, all of the JCDS faculty and staff are eager to sign their contracts for the coming year. There is a feeling of optimism in the air, a sense that we have turned the corner, and are on the road to long-term stability. Keyn-Y’hi-
Ratzon: May it be so.
104
APPENDICES
Appendix A
Mission Statement of Jewish Community Day School
MISSION STATEMENT
The mission of Jewish Community Day School (JCDS) is to instill a love of learning invigorated by academic excellence. JCDS is grounded in Jewish tradition, fostering spirituality (emunah), dedication to repair our world (tikkun olam) and commitment to the entire Jewish people (c’lal
Yisrael). JCDS is a nurturing school where families of all backgrounds are welcomed and children are prepared to be engaged compassionate leaders.
At JCDS we ensure that:
Students become inquiring, capable youth who are passionate lifelong learners
Teachers are dedicated to best educational practices
Families are engaged in their children’s academic achievement and holistic development
Ethics and morals of our students are nurtured through commitment to Jewish values
Positive connections to the language, land, culture and people of the State of Israel are
created
Children are primed for full participation in our global society
105
Appendix B
Excerpt from the 2007 Executive Summary of the Strategic Plan to Revitalize New Orleans put forth by the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans
The Jewish community, led by the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, has recently completed a comprehensive strategic planning process to define its future goals and the steps needed to reach those goals. Among other aspirations, the community seeks to retain its existing infrastructure and increase the Jewish population to, at the very least, its pre-Katrina size.
Strategic planning is an essential bridge needed to close the gap between where New Orleans was the day after Hurricane Katrina and the community's ultimate aspirations and vision for the future. The Federation formulated its strategic plan through a high degree of community involvement, and a highly developed structure. The process was separated into two distinct stages: the planning stage and the implementation stage. The community has gone through 3 distinct phases. The initial phase, which extended over about 3 months, was survival. Assistance during this phase included the aid of UJC and Jewish communities across the country. The second phase is recovery, allowing families, synagogues and institutions to get back on their feet and begin functioning again. The recovery phase should be completed by the end of 2007. The third phase is long term, including renewal and rebuilding over the next 5-10 years. The planning stage began with a thorough self-examination of the community in the Spring of 2005.
Allan Bissinger, Eric Stillman (Federation's former Executive Director), Roselle Ungar, then
JFGNO's Assistant Executive Director, with the facilitation of Michael Novick, a consultant from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, established a Recovery Cabinet of 106 thirty professionals and lay leaders representing the boards of the synagogues, Jewish organizations and agencies across the city. The Recovery Cabinet's mission was to determine a vision statement for the community. In October, 2006, the Recovery Cabinet created the task force process to further explore the facets of its vision. Five task forces were formed which included 150 members of the lay and professional community. Each task force addressed issues within one of the following 5 areas: 1. Community and People 2. Geography and Services 3.
Finance and Fundraising 4. Agencies and Organizations 5. Public Relations, Marketing and
Media Each task force, together with the Steering Committee and the professional staff, met numerous times between October 2006 and June 2007 to develop a list of strategic priorities. In
March, 2007, the Federation held a special Community Marathon Planning Event in order to hear the thoughts and hopes of the community at large. As hoped, the Community Marathon Planning
Event was well attended by task force members as well as many who had not been involved in the process prior to the event. The Marathon familiarized the community with the strategic planning process and it provided the planners with needed data concerning the general perception of the current state of the community. Following the Community Marathon Planning Event, a list of core issues was identified which would be used as strategic impetus. The planning process neared completion in July, 2007 with each task force making its recommendations for action.
The implementation phase will act on those recommendations in the years ahead.
Implementation will begin by folding the task forces into the Federation's standing committees.
Those committees address the following four areas: • Planning and Allocations • Education and
Culture • Outreach and Community Relations • Public Relations and Communications. It is hoped that the implementation phase will be aided by data collected through a community demographic survey. The survey, which was co-sponsored by the Jewish Endowment 107
Foundation of Louisiana and the Estelle Friedman Gervis Foundation, is the first systematic New
Orleans Jewish community demographic survey since 1984. The Community Demographic
Study, along with surveyed focus groups, is intended to gather quantitative and qualitative results that are important to the Jewish community by providing a statistically reliable, demographic and attitudinal picture of our local community. By incorporating the results of the survey into the implementation phase of the planning process, the standing committees will be better equipped to fulfill the Federation mission to build and sustain a vibrant Jewish community in the Greater
New Orleans area. The following are some of the recommendations from each of the task forces.
Some of the proposals will be implemented immediately, but many will require substantial long range planning and even considerable fundraising in and out of the community before being realized.
COMMUNITY AND PEOPLE • Newcomers incentive program • Newcomers party and welcome package • Weekend missions to New Orleans • Business and job networking • New
Orleans Jewish Business Council • More intensive work with college student engagement •
Expanding student internships • Intermarriage outreach initiative • Counseling for post Katrina trauma • Focused work with volunteers
GEOGRAPHY AND SERVICES • Community Jewish Day School tuition assistance • Effective plan for supplementary Jewish education and scholarships • Modern Orthodox Kollel • New
Hillel building • Community mikveh • Satellite services to Northshore
FUNDRAISING AND FINANCE • Community grant writer • Community wide planned giving •
Planned giving by those who have left • Community fundraiser event • Involving more local businesses in giving • Corporate sponsorships 108
STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS Revitalizing • Focused external fundraising • Fundraising to sustain agencies and synagogues
AGENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS • Possible collaboration of the two Jewish Day Schools •
Collaboration between the Reform synagogues' programming, Hebrew and religious schools, family programs • Collaboration in senior services • Coordinated youth activities • Unified adult education • Community-wide events and coordination of cultural activities
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING • New publicity package • Hiring a public relations firm • Preparing and placing good news stories • Jewish web portal • New community film •
Press releases
109
Appendix C
JTA Article, August 26, 2013. “As School Crumbles, New Orleans Rabbi Uri Topolosky
Leaves City”
It didn’t take long after Rabbi Uri Topolosky moved to New Orleans in 2007 for the moderate
Orthodox rabbi to win plaudits for helping the city’s Jewish community heal following Hurricane
Katrina in 2005. The congregation Topolosky was hired to lead, Beth Israel, had seen its building destroyed during the hurricane and ever since had been meeting in a room at the local Reform temple. The first Shabbat he was in town, Topolosky made a point of participating not only in the
Orthodox service, but in the Reform one, too. Over the next six years, Topolosky expanded his congregation, helped Beth Israel erect a new building, put up an eruv enclosure in New Orleans and, at least when Katrina anniversaries rolled around, enjoyed a national reputation as an exemplar of Jewish interdenominational cooperation. But this year’s Katrina anniversary finds
Topolosky in a much different place: his new home in suburban Washington. Early this month,
Topolosky, his wife and four children left the Big Easy for Maryland, where Topolosky will lead a small congregation in Rockville, Beth Joshua, and be a rabbi at the 700-student Melvin J.
Berman Hebrew Academy, which he attended. The congregation meets in the school. Topolosky attributes his move to the deteriorating Jewish educational landscape in New Orleans, which he said no longer suits his kids’ needs. “Part of me was very sad to move back to the Northeast,” said Topolosky, who grew up in the Maryland area and now has children ranging in age from 2 to 9. “But we really wanted to go back to a community where there was a job and there was a school.” New Orleans’ Jewish school is in dire straits. After being shuttered for a year following 110
Katrina, the school, established in 1996, has not managed to recoup its pre-storm enrollment of more than 80 students. Enrollment reached its post-Katrina peak of 51 in 2010-‘11, but it tumbled after the school’s board decided to actively recruit non-Jewish students. Last year there were 38 pupils, and this term there are 29 — approximately half are not Jewish. Last September, the board dropped the word Jewish from the school’s name, changing it from the New Orleans
Jewish Day School to Community Day School. The school still offers about two hours per day of mandatory Jewish and Hebrew study, but it wasn’t enough for the Topoloskys — or many others.
“Many of the Jewish families left, including children of rabbis,” Sharon Pollin, the new head of the school, told JTA. Pollin cited as reasons the small number of students, the shrinking number of Jewish students and the commute.
The school is located in the suburb of Metairie, and many Jewish families now live in
New Orleans proper. This year, the school eliminated its fifth grade and consolidated four of its grades into two. The school’s troubles “just sort of pushed the question for us of whether it was time to go,” Topolosky said. “We wanted our kids to have an environment where they were within the Jewish community, had other Jewish kids to be with, playmates on Shabbat.” Beth
Israel has hired a successor to Topolosky, Rabbi Gabriel Greenberg, but he won’t be coming to
New Orleans for another year because of his commitment at the Hillel of the University of
California, Berkeley. Both Topolosky and Greenberg are graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the liberal Orthodox rabbinical school in New York City founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss. The day school’s troubles and Topolosky’s departure offer a counterpoint to the upbeat narrative of growth and resurgence often cited by Jewish community leaders in New Orleans. But the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, Michael Weil, says the two developments have specific causes that do not correlate with the overall health of the New 111
Orleans Jewish community. Rather, school officials say, the day school has lost students because of parents’ economic constraints, new high-quality public charter schools and the geographic shift of New Orleans Jewry from Metairie to New Orleans parish.
“The school and Topolosky’s move are not representative of a trend,” Weil said. “The community is probably in the best place it’s ever been.” New Orleans Jewry recently surpassed its pre-Katrina size of 9,500, according to Weil, with an estimated 9,870 Jews in the city. There are fewer older Jews but many more young Jewish professionals. The federation runs a Jewish newcomers program that offers young Jews who move to the city a free year of JCC and synagogue membership, a $500 credit at the Jewish school and a free meal at a local kosher restaurant. “The system gives something away for free of real value, enables us to track everybody and encourages people to engage in the Jewish community, which is really what we want,” Weil said. “We probably catch in our net 75 percent of all the new Jews who move in here.” Topolosky says it was difficult to leave New Orleans, but ultimately the community could not provide what his Orthodox family required. Even though Topolosky’s congregation was able to rebuild, Beth Israel still has not been able to restore its pre-Katrina daily minyan. Now a typical Shabbat morning service draws about 40 worshipers, and Friday night services 25. Only a handful of families in New Orleans adhere to Orthodox observance. The other Orthodox synagogue in town, Anshe Sfard, has an even smaller congregation. There are also three Chabad centers in the area, and plans to open a new Chabad-run school in 2014. “New Orleans never was, nor do I imagine it ever will be, a haven for Orthodox Judaism,” Topolosky said. “We loved the idea of a small community; we loved knowing our congregation, being a part of making a difference. But the problem is those small communities rarely come with the benefits of a larger community — most importantly, a school.” In their new home, the Topoloskys have been able 112 to find a bit of both a large community and a small one. Beth Joshua, the congregation
Topolosky will lead, has just 20 families. Though it is housed in a large Orthodox school, only a handful of Orthodox families live in the surrounding neighborhood, Aspen Hill. Nearly all of the students at Berman Hebrew Academy are driven in from nearby Silver Spring, Potomac and
Washington’s Shepherds Park neighborhood. For Topolosky, the move to Maryland is also a homecoming. Along with growing up in the area and attending the Berman academy’s high school, he also has family nearby. “We were very lucky to find a very small Orthodox community we can grow and at the same time be surrounded by the amenities of a large community,” Topolosky said.
113
Appendix D
“TEN YEARS LATER: JEWISH NEW ORLEANS AFTER KATRINA”
Excerpts from a speech given by Allan Bissinger, president, Jewish Federation of Greater New
Orleans (2005–2007)
Having made the decision to remain in my home to ride out the storm, as I had done for every storm in my then 53 years living in New Orleans, I had to live with that decision and make the best of it. My family was safe. My wife and daughter had evacuated to Pensacola and my sons were away at their respective colleges. The only ones I had to worry about were me and my mother who also chose to stay. After the storm hit I called my wife and told her “all was well, it did not look bad and we had survived.” That was about 2 hours before the levees broke and our lives changed. I could tell my Katrina story in detail which included some bad decisions, some luck and some sad and some humorous stories, but I think the person that would find them most interesting would be me. Leave it to say that I escaped by swimming out of my house four days after the storm and was fortunate enough to end up President of the Federation and in a position where I could help my community.
I had the opportunity to work with many past and current leaders of Jewish agencies, organizations and synagogues and members of the UJC (United Jewish Communities) from throughout the country. There were 19 such entities and all survived and are in existence in New
Orleans today. Each has its own story. But we all have Katrina stories. Stories of temporary evacuations that were prolonged or even permanent, stories of harrowing escapes and rescues, stories of people we met and helped and were helped by, and family dynamics that were changed 114 temporarily or forever. There were heroes and villains, fortunately many more heroes. The heroes included New Orleans residents as well as people from throughout the national and world wide Jewish Community that came to our rescue in the form of both financial aid as well as personal time. We were in a survival mode and the true Jewish moral fiber and traditions that we have had for all of our lives read about, talked about and tried to live by, were put to the test. I am so proud of our local and broader Jewish Community that we not only survived but we did so by maintaining and following those traditions of Tzedakah and for many a new concept of being on the receiving side. The New Orleans Jewish community was never more dispersed yet never closer in the days and months following Katrina. I learned a lot about myself and others during those months and that is what I find to be the most valuable lessons learned. I learned that the people that were most successful were those that did not feel sorry for themselves or angry at others, but that accepted the reality of their situation and made the best of it. I learned early on in conversations with others that there was always someone that had a more harrowing escape or was in a tougher situation than you. Those that did not expect help but graciously accepted help when it was offered, and those that did not lose their moral compass were also successful. We are now beyond the survival and rebuilding phases of recovery and have begun the rest of our lives. We are a stronger, closer, more resilient and younger Jewish community and we have
Katrina to thank for that.
115
References
Adams, T. E., Holman Jones, S. A., & Ellis, C. (2015). Autoethnography: Understanding qualitative research. New York: Oxford University Press. Arnoff, S. (2011). A sustainable future. Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=8231
Axelrod, R., & Cohen, M. D. (2000). Harnessing complexity: Organizational implications of a scientific frontier. New York: Basic Books.
Bayerlein, L., & McGrath, N. (2016). Collaborating for success: An analysis of the working relationship between academics and educational development professionals. Studies in Higher Education, 1-18.
Bochner, A. (2001). Narrative’s virtues. Qualitative Inquiry. Retrieved from http://qix.sagepub.com/content/7/2/131.short
Bochner, A. P., & Ellis, C. (2003). An introduction to the arts and narrative research: Art as inquiry. Qualitative inquiry, 9(4), 506–514.
Boylorn, R. M. (2008). As seen on TV: An autoethnographic reflection on race and reality television. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25(4), 413-433.
Brogden, L. (2010). Identities (academic+ private)= subjectivities (desire): Re: collecting art∙ i/f/acts. Qualitative Inquiry. Retrieved from http://qix.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/03/29/1077800410364354.abstract
Butin, D. W. (Ed.). (2009). The education dissertation: A guide for practitioner scholars. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Cardin, R. N. B. (2007). A synagogue-based team approach to health and healing. Journal of Jewish Communal Service, 82(1/2).
Chang, H. (2007). Autoethnography: Raising cultural consciousness of self and others. In Methodological developments in ethnography (pp. 207-221). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.
Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as method: Developing qualitative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. 116
Chang, H., Ngunjiri, F. W. & Hernandez, K.-A. C. (2013). Collaborative autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Charmaz, K. (1983), Loss of self: A fundamental form of suffering in the chronically ill. Sociology of Health & Illness, 5, 168–195. doi:10.1111/1467-9566.ep10491512
Chertok, F., Kadushin, C., Koren, A., & Wright, G. (2007). What difference does day school make? The impact of day school: A comparative analysis of Jewish college students. Retrieved from http://bir.unet.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/22974
Chiles, T. H., Meyer, A. D., & Hench, T. J. (2004). Organizational Emergence: The origin and transformation of Branson, Missouri's musical theaters. Organization Science. doi:10.1287/orsc.1040.0095
Cohen, E. H. (2013). The camping experience: The impact of JDC Jewish summer camps on Eastern European Jews. New York: JDC.
Cohen, S. M., & Kotler-Berkowitz, L. A. (2004, January 1). NJPS 2000-01: Strength, challenge and diversity in the American Jewish population. New York: United Jewish Communities (UJC). Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=8140
Cohen, S. M., Miller, R., Sheskin, I. M., & Torr, B. (2011). Camp works: The long-term impact of Jewish overnight camp. New York: Foundation for Jewish Camp.
Cohen, C., & Perla, D. (2013). Keeping Jewish day school accessible to middle-income families. Jewish Day School Affordability Knowledge Center White Papers. Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE). Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=18360
Comfort, L. K., & Haase, T. W. (2006). Communication, coherence, and collective action: The impact of Hurricane Katrina on communications infrastructure. Public Works Management & Policy. doi:10.1177/1087724X06289052
Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 117
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Qualitative procedures. In Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (pp. 173-202). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:. Sage.
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage.
Crowell, D. (2011). Leadership in complex nursing and health care systems. Nursing, Caring, and Complexity Science, 199–211.
Damianakis, T. & Woodford, M.R. (2015). Qualitative research with small connected communities: Generating new knowledge while upholding research ethics. Qualitative Health Research, 22(5) 708–-718.
Elkin, J. & Kling, S. (2007, Fall). Day schools: Preparing students to engage with the world's diversity. HaYidion, 16, 29. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=21713
Ellis, C. (2000). Creating criteria: An ethnographic short story. Qualitative Inquiry. Retrieved from http://qix.sagepub.com/content/6/2/273.short
Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Ellis, C. (2007). Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative inquiry, 13(1), 3–-29.
Ellis, C. (2009). Fighting back or moving on. International Review of Qualitative Research, 2(3), 371–-378.
Ellis, C., Adams, T., & Bochner, A. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research/Historische. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23032294
Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In Y. A. Lincoln & N. K. Denzin (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 118
Epstein, J. L., Galindo, C. L., & Sheldon, S. B. (2011). Levels of leadership: Effects of district and school leaders on the quality of school programs of family and community involvement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47(3), 462–-495.
Fishman, S. B., & Goldstein, A. (1993). When they are grown they will not depart: Jewish education and the Jewish behavior of American adults. Waltham, MA: Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University.
Foster, K., McAllister, M., & O'brien, L. (2006). Extending the boundaries: Autoethnography as an emergent method in mental health nursing research. International journal of mental health nursing, 15(1), 44–-53.
Fraenkel, J., Wallen, J., & Huyn, H. (2012). How to design and evaluate research in education. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Gino, F., Argote, L., Miron-Spektor, E., & Todorova, G. (2010). First, get your feet wet: The effects of learning from direct and indirect experience on team creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 111 (2), 102–115.
Glanz, J. (2012). Improving instructional quality in Jewish day schools and yeshivot: Best practices culled from research and the field. New York: Jewish Press.
Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos. London: Abacus.
Goodman, R. L. (2008). What we now know about Jewish education: Perspectives on research for practice. Los Angeles: Torah Aura Productions.
Goldring-Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. (2014). History of Jewish New Orleans. JacksonJasckson, MS: Autor.
Griffin, N. (2014). Book review: Heewon Chang, Faith Wambura Ngunjiri and Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, Collaborative autoethnography. Qualitative Research. Retrieved from http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/14/4/523.short
Harris, D. L. (1994). Systems research.
Harris, D. N., Valant, J., & Gross, B. (2015). The New Orleans OneApp. Education Next, 15(4).
Hayano, D. (1979). Auto-ethnography: Paradigms, problems, and prospects. Human Organizationorganization, 38(1), 99–104. 119
Hazy, James K., & aUhl. and Uhl-Bien, Mary. (2013). Towards operationalizing complexity leadership: How generative, administrative and community-building leadership practices enact organizational outcomes. Management Department Faculty Publications no. 108, University of Nebraska.
Heider, K. G. (1975). What do people do? Dani auto-ethnography. Journal of Anthropological Research, 31(1), 3–17.
Heifetz, R. A., & Laurie, D. L. (1997). The work of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 75, 124–-134.
Heifetz, R. A., & Laurie, D. L. (2001). The work of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 2001. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/2001/12/the-work-of-leadership/ar/1
Hellriegel, D., & Slocum, J. W. (2011). Organizational behavior. Independence, KY: Cengage Learning.
Hirsh, K. (2011). Stop waiting for Superman. Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=8234
Hoban, G. F. (2002). Teacher learning for educational change: A systems thinking approach. Open University Press.
Holman Jones, S., Adams, T., & Ellis, C. (2013). Handbook of autoethnography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Houchin, K., & MacLean, D. (2005). Complexity theory and strategic change: Anan empirically informed critique. British Journal of Management, 16(2), 149–166.
Kelner, S. (2008). Jewish educational travel. In by R. L. Goodman et al. (Eds.), What we now know about Jewish education (pp. 423–432). Los Angeles: Torah Aura Publications.
Kierkegaard, S. (1843). 1992. Either/or: A fragment of life. New York: Penguin Classics.
Knabb, R. D., Rhome, J. R., & Brown, D. P. (2006). Tropical Cyclone report: Hurricane Katrina, August 23–30, 2005. Fire Engineering, 159(5), 32–40.
Kramer, M. (2012). Point. In A. G. Osborne, C. J. Russo, & G. M. & Catano (Eds.), Alternative schooling and school choice (pp. 128–135). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 120
Korn, B. W. (1969). The early Jews of New Orleans. Cincinnati: American Jewish Historical Society.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997). Chaos/complexity science and second language acquisition. Applied Linguisticss, 18(2), 141–165.
Leifer, R. (1989). Understanding organizational transformation using a dissipative structure model. Human Relations, 42(10), 899–916.
Lewin, R. (1999). Complexity: Life at the edge of chaos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lichtenstein, B. (2016). Emergence and emergents in entrepreneurship: Complexity science insights into new venture creation. Entrepreneurship Research Journal, 6(1), 43–52. Lichtenstein, B. B., & Plowman, D. A. (2009). The leadership of emergence: A complex systems leadership theory of emergence at successive organizational levels. Leadership Quarterly. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.04.006
Lipset, S. M. (1994). The power of Jewish education. Los Angeles: Susan and David Wilstein Institute of Jewish Policy Studies.
Lorenz, E. N. (1963). Deterministic nonperiodic flow. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 20(2), 130–141.
Louisiana Department of Education. (2014) 2013-2014 annual report. Baton Rouge: Author.
Manning, G., & Curtis, K. (2012). The art of leadership. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Markens, I. (1888). The Hebrews in America: A series of historical and biographical sketches.
Marion, R. (2008). Complexity theory for organization and organizational leadership. In M. Uhl- Bien & R. Marion (Eds.), Complexity leadership, Part 1: Conceptual foundations (pp. 1– 15). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Marvasti , Amir (2006). Being Middle Eastern American: Identity negotiation in the context of the war on terror. Symbolic Interaction 28(4), 525–547.
McCorkel, J. A., & Myers, K. (2003). What difference does difference make? Position and privilege in the field. Qualitative Sociology, 26(2), 199–231.
Mcquillan, P. (2008). Small-school reform through the lens of complexity theory: It’s “good to think with.”’ Teacher's College Record, 110(9), 1772–1801. 121
Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morrison, K. (2002). School leadership and complexity theory. London : Routledge Falmer.
Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374– -393.
Mosselson, J. (2010). Subjectivity and reflexivity: Locating the self in research on dislocation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(4), 479–494.
Muncey, T. (2010). Creating autoethnographies. London: Sage.
Ngunjiri, F. W. (2014). Voice and representation: Collaborative autoethnography as method for studying African leadership and management realities. Paper presented at the 2nd Biennial Conference of the Africa: Gaborone, Botswana. Greensboro, NC: The Africa Academy of Management.
Nooteboom, S. G., & Termeer, C. J. (2013). Strategies of complexity leadership in governance systems. International Review of Public Administration, 18(1), 1–16.
Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Obolensky, M. N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Surrey, UK: Gower Publishing.
Pascale, R. T., Millemann, M., & Gioja, L. (2000). Surfing the edge of chaos: The laws of nature and the new laws of business. New York: Crown Publishers.
Goldberg, S., Katz, A., Kramer, M., Mitzmacher, J. & Walsh, J.W. (2014). As pew study raises concerns, invest in jewish day schools. New York Jewish Week. January 15, 2004.
Lugo, L., Cooperman, A., Smith, G. A., O’Connell, E., & Sandra, S. (2013). A portrait of Jewish Americans: Findings from a pew research center survey of US Jews. Pew Research Institute, 10.
Plowman, D. A., & Duchon, D. (2008). Dispelling the myths about leadership: From cybernetics to emergence. In M. Uhl-Bien & R. Marion (Eds.), Complexity leadership, Part 1: Conceptual foundations, (p. 129-153). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. 122
Plummer, K. (2001). Documents of life 2: An invitation to a critical humanism. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Pomson, A. (2004). Day school parents and their children’s schools. Contemporary Jewry. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=2756
Pomson, A. (2007). School for parents: What parents want and what they get from their children’s Jewish day schools. In J. Wertheimer (Ed.). Family matters: Jewish education in an age of choice. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press.
Pomson, A., & Schnoor, R. A. (2008). Back to school: Jewish day school in the lives of adults. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Prager, Y. (2010). Day school sustainability: Ours to achieve. Growing Jewish Education in Challenging Times: A Roundtable on Critical Challenges and Opportunities. Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA). Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=4955
Quigley D. (2006). Perspective: A review of improved ethical practices in environmental and public health research: Case examples from native communities. Health Education & Behavior, 33(2), 130–147. doi:10.1177/109019810427205310.1177/1090198104272053
Quigley, N. R., & Tymon Jr, W. G. (2006). Toward an integrated model of intrinsic motivation and career self-management. Career Development International, 11(6), 522–543.
Rashid, F., Edmondson, A. C., & Leonard, H. B. (2013, July/August). Leadership lessons from the Chileanchilean mine rescue. Harvard Business Review, 1–8.
Rau, S .H. (1998). History of Jewish education in New Orleans. New York: M.A. thesis, Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion.
Rimor, M., & Katz, E. (1993). Jewish involvement of the baby-boom generation. Jerusalem: Louis Guttman Israel Institute of Applied Social Research.
Ronai, C. R. (1995). Multiple reflections of child sex abuse: An argument for a layered account. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 23(4), 395–426.
Ronai, C. R. (1996). My mother is mentally retarded. Composing ethnography: Alternative forms qualitative writing, 1, 109–131. 123
Sales, A. L. (2011). Lessons from mapping Jewish education. Retrieved from http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/11
Salzman, P. (2002). On reflexivity. American Anthropologist. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.805/abstract
Saxe, L., & Sales, A. L. (2002). Camp for counselors. Contact: The Journal of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life. Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=5311
Scandura, T. A., & Sharif, M. M. (2013). Team leadership: The Chilean mine case. Mine Case.Management Faculty Articles and Papers. Retrieved from http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/management_articles/13 School Culture Definition - The Glossary of Education Reform. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://edglossary.org/school-culture/http://edglossary.org/school-culture/ Schick, 2005. A census of Jewish day schools in the United States: 2003–2004. AVI CHAI Foundation. Retrieved from http://avichai.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Census-of- JDS-in-the-US-2003-04-Final.pdf
Schick, M. (2009). A census of Jewish day schools in the United States: 2008–2009. AVI CHAI Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=4027
Schick, M. (2012). 2011–12 day school enrollment: Press release. Retrieved April 5, 2013 from http://avichai.org/2011/12/2011-12-day-school-enrollment-sees-modest-decline/
Schiff, A. (1987). The Jewish day school—the next half-century. Judaism. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/openview/29193a036c72e6df46cc5281e14f6f00/1?pq- origsite=gscholar
Schwartz, J., Mosharafa, E., & Wallace, S. L. (2016). Women of color in academia and the influence of religious cultureCulture on self-promotion: A collaborative autoethnography. Review of European Studies, 8(2), 85.
Schwarz, S. (2013). Jewish megatrends: Charting the course of the American Jewish future. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing. 124
Semetsky, I. (2008). On the creative logic of education, or: re‐reading Dewey through the lens of complexity science. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1), 83–95.
Soloveitchik, H. (1994). Rupture and reconstruction: The transformation of contemporary Orthodoxy. Tradition. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23261215
Stacey, R. D. (1995). The science of complexity: An alternative perspective for strategic change processes. Strategic Management Journal, 16(6), 477–-495. doi:10.1002/smj.4250160606
Stern, J. (2016). Thinking something doesn't make it true. Evolutionary Anthropology, 25, 36– 38. doi:10.1002/evan.21472
Syme, D. B. (1983). Reform Judaism and day schools: The great historical dilemma. Religious Education, 78(2), 153–181.
Tillmann-Healy, L.Lisa M., & and Christine E. Kiesinger, C. E. (2001). Mirrors: Seeing each other and ourselves through fieldwork. In K. Gilbert (Ed.), The emotional nature of qualitative research (pp. 81–-108). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Tong, H., Faloutsos, C., & Pan, J. Y. (2006). Fast random walk with restart and its applications. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University. Tsoukas, H., & Hatch, M. J. (2001). Complex thinking, complex practice: The case for a narrative approach to organizational complexity. Human Relations. doi:10.1177/0018726701548001 Uhl-Bien, M., & Marion, R. (2009). Complexity leadership in bureaucratic forms of organizing: A meso model. Leadership Quarterly. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.04.007 Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. Leadership Quarterly. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.04.002
Valley, Ben. (2002). New directions in day school education. Contact; The Magazine of Jewish Life, 2(4), 2.
Van Maanon, J. (2011). On writing ethnography: Tales of the field. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 125
Waldrop, M. (1994). Complexity—The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos. New York: Simon & Shuster
Weil, M. (2008). Strategic plan of the New Orleans Jewish community. New Orleans: Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.
Weinberger, E. (2003). The new directions anthology of classical Chinese poetry. New York: New Directions Books.
Wertheimer, J. (2008). A census of Jewish supplementary schools in the United States: 2006– 2007. AVI CHAI Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=3529
Wertheimer, J. (2009). The future of Jewish education. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Retrieved from http://jcpa.org/article/the-future-of-jewish-education/
Wertheimer, J., Benor, S., & Chai, A. (2010). Generation of change: How leaders in their twenties and thirties are reshaping American Jewish life. Retrieved from http://www.jewishcamp.org/sites/default/files/u5/NEW Generation_of_Change.pdf
Wheatley, M. J. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
Winshall, A. (2001). Building the future from the future: Investing in Jewish education in 21st century America. Agenda: Jewish Education. Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA). Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=375
Wong, M. L., & Tiu-Wu, A. (2014). Academic sisterhood: A collaborative autoethnography of two Asian mothers, adult educators, and scholars. Proceedings of Adult Education Research Conference.
Woocher, M. L. (2003). Texts in tension: Negotiating Jewish values in the adult Jewish learning classroom. In R. Goodman et al. (Eds.), What we know about Jewish education. Los Angeles: Torah Aura Productions.
Woocher, J. (2012). Reinventing Jewish education for the 21st century. Journal of Jewish Education. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15244113.2012.700636 126
Woocher, J. (2013, January 1). The Pew Survey and day schools: Opening ourselves to new possibilities? HaYidion. RAVSAK. Retrieved from http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=21132