How exciting it is to be back in our beautiful school! Our division has had a great start of the year.

We have been extremely hard at work ensuring the safety of our students, teachers, and staff members. In our first week of school, we focused our energy on the social emotional development of our wonderful students.

We walked them through their classroom rules, and we highlighted our new daily practices. We had long discussions about practicing social distance, the proper way of washing our hands and how to effectively wear our mask.

Reopening our campus was far from easy, our amazing team worked long hours to make sure that everything was within our accredited agencies standards, and readied to start the new year. Our building was constantly inspected to assure that it is fitted to accommodate the needs of students in our ever-changing environment. We are extremely grateful to our maintenance staff for making sure everything does and continues to run as smoothly as possible.

In addition, as per the Governor’s Executive Order 20-131 regarding essential services and activities; we are taking the following precautions.

• Implement social distancing strategies. We work with our medical committee to determine a set of strategies appropriate for our community’s situation.

• Intensify cleaning and disinfection efforts, including devising a schedule, and focus on toys, games, and other objects and surfaces that are frequently used.

• Modify drop-off and pick-up procedures to include thorough screening.

• Maintain an adequate ratio of staff to children to ensure safety.

• Children and childcare providers will not change from one cohort to another.

We have adjusted our schedules to maximize outdoor time, where our students will limit the use of masks and will have more space to practice social distance and play in a healthy way. We have purchased and placed pools in every single classroom for our students to enjoy Water Play. Water Play provides hours of rich and valuable early childhood experiences to develop children's creativity and imagination.

Our wonderful Morot are providing our students with many learning experiences that not only enrich their understanding of the world, but they are also forging the path to building strong and meaningful relationships. They are also incorporating music, movement, Ivrit, Spanish and many other different activities to enhance our outstanding program. The high holidays are the theme of discussions among all classrooms. Children are learning about the shofar, the bees, and how they make honey, Aseret Yemei Teshuba, the seder of Rosh Hashanah etc.

As we begin to get ready for the Yamim Noraim; I learned from the beautiful words of the Avnei Nazer (he was the leading posek in late-nineteenth-century Europe and founder and first Rebbe of the Sochatchover Hasidic dynasty). He says, we eat honey because it comes from bees that cause pain. Bees sting and we tend to run away from them and the pain it could afflict. But why? If we want a sweet year, we can eat a piece of apple cake or some sugar. Why specifically honey? To teach us that the pain of the past will become the sweetness of the future.

My Beracha is that any pain, aggravation, "Agmat Nefesh" that you suffered this year will turn into an amazing new year that is transformed into lots of Simcha, blessings, and a tremendous amount of Nachat and happiness. It should be a year that is so sweet that you will be always smiling!

May we grow and transform ourselves constantly. May we always count our blessings even though they may be disguised as pain and may HaKadosh Baruch Hu continue to guide us through it all every day!

Shana Tova!

I look forward to a wonderful year of growth and learning.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at your convenience. You can reach me at rfelici@rasg.org or our school office 305-532-6421 Ext. 118.