Kindergarten

We Grow Learners

We Grow Leaders

We Grow Community

These are characteristics which we cultivate in our students from the youngest grades in Jr. K to our 8th graders. This foundation gives our graduates a strong self-identity which stays with them throughout their lives.

Gesher is a welcoming, pluralistic community where children of varied practices and approaches to Judaism come together to learn where responsibility for the self, caring for others, and stewardship of the environment are core values. Our integrated curriculum of General and Jewish Studies prepares students to be knowledgeable and committed Jews, dedicated to the state of Israel and informed, responsible American citizens.

Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth.

Active play strengthens bones, muscles and the brain and establishes connections between all of them. A physically active lifestyle is crucial for life-long health and physical and emotional well being. To develop good habits, children should be physically active every day.

Gesher Kindergartners and all grades, are consistently active with the #DitchTheDesk initiative. There is unstructured recess time for our Kindergarten students at least twice a day along with structured learning that happens in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings across our 28 acre campus.

The best part about Gesher is the community feel. Whenever the whole school gets together for Kabbalat Shabbat or a holiday it feels special, like you belong to something.
–Rachel F. 5th grader

We are permanently shaped and influenced by our experiences from preschool through middle school – our children grow and learn more during their school years than at any other time of life. Our personalities, behaviors, language, learning skills, and values follow an arc of development with the steepest climbs coming early. To be instilled with a love for Israel and anchored in a Jewish identity that permeates the generations, our experiences must begin at an early age and the learning must be nurtured throughout the critical arc of development.

The strong core identity of Jewish day school graduates enables them to enter the public high school, college, or workforce more equipped to contribute to diversity and appreciate the unique qualities of others in those environments.

Gesher’s strength is in our size with an 8:1 Student to teacher ratio.

Research reveals what teachers and parents intuitively know: class size does matter. Excellent student-teacher ratios lead to deeper, more meaningful learning experiences and higher student achievement. As a result, our teachers develop a strong relationship with each student and are able to build on their individual strengths.

Independent school students generally perform better than their public school counterparts on standardized achievement tests. At Gesher JDS, students routinely score above the 90th percentile on standardized tests when compared with students at public schools.

Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction.

At Gesher Jewish Day School, we advocate for the academic growth of every child and the health and wellness of all students, including their physical health, and their social and emotional well-being. Faculty members, parents, and students collaborate to identify student needs and scaffold the student experience as needed to ensure that individuals are able to make ongoing progress.

Teachers work in partnership with our Student Support Team to differentiate at least four classroom elements based on student readiness, interest, or learning profile:

• Content – what the student needs to learn or how the student will get access to the information;

• Process – activities in which the student engages in order to make sense of or master the content;

• Products – culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what he or she has learned in a unit; and

• Learning environment – the way the classroom works and feels.