Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School (Wornick) is a vital part of the North Peninsula Jewish community. Founded in 1986, the school’s inaugural student body was made up of 21 children in kindergarten, first, and second grades. Over the years, Wornick’s average enrollment has increased tenfold, and the school now serves 210 students from transitional kindergarten (TK) through eighth grade. To mark twenty years at its current location, and to provide a dynamic setting for the school’s 21st century curriculum, Wornick has undertaken its Reconstructing Our Future campaign. The campaign has two major goals: capital improvements, including two large gathering spaces, an Innovation Center, an industrial-quality kosher kitchen, and an expanded teachers’ lounge; and funding a reserve that will enable Wornick to attract and retain excellent teachers. 

Koret’s longstanding support for Wornick aligns with two of the Foundation’s priorities: education and Jewish Peoplehood. We have always believed in the value of education at all levels, and our grantmaking supports early childhood programs through college and post-graduate internships and scholar exchanges, building a love of learning at all ages.  Jewish educational institutions and cultural programs that deepen Jewish identification are also a key priority of the Koret Foundation.  Wornick physically shares a campus with the Peninsula JCC, another Koret grantee. The new gathering spaces, and the upgraded kitchen, will allow Wornick and the PJCC to expand partnership programming and to host larger events for the entire North Peninsula Jewish community.

Wornick is a special place, dedicated to providing its students a rich educational experience, including a sense of what it means to be a leader and a global citizen. Seventy percent of students have a parent who graduated from high school outside the U.S., mostly from Israel. The school’s Hebrew-language program is part of daily life at Wornick for all grades, in classrooms and on the playing field, where PE classes are conducted exclusively in Hebrew. The program empowers students to acquire foreign-language skills in a setting where they can actually practice communicating in real time. The cognitive benefits of learning such a challenging language—including a different alphabet—are well documented. By the time Wornick graduates go on a school trip to Israel, they have used their Hebrew with many native speakers—fellow students, shinshinim (Israeli gap-year volunteers) and shlichim (teaching emissaries), and even their soccer coach.

We recently had a chance to chat with Adam Eilath, who has just begun his seventh year as Wornick’s head of school. A Jewish educator for many years, he is deeply invested in the study and teaching of Jewish traditions and values. Eilath has an excellent perspective as to how the campaign will position Wornick to amplify its dual role as a place of learning and as a hub for the local Jewish community. Construction began over the summer, and will continue throughout the year.

The mission statements of nonprofits are often vague or overly aspirational, whereas Wornick’s is purposeful, concise, and dynamic, like a motto: Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School develops students who are socially and academically prepared to meet their full potential as engaged leaders committed to a life steeped in Jewish ethics and values. Eilath set the tone for our conversation by observing, “Our mission has not changed: our purpose is to help our students reach their potential. But how we fulfill the mission has changed in response to the educational environment, and to what we as educators have learned about how to help students learn.”

When Wornick was constructed 20 years ago, the school’s design included two classrooms for every grade, kindergarten through 8, and several offices. Eilath comments, “The design was based on the premise that most of what happens educationally during the school day, happens in the classroom.” Educators now realize much more fully the differences in how students learn and how the school setting itself needs to accommodate those differences. Students benefit from having a range of learning experiences in their schoolday, including smaller classes, social-emotional support, tech-integrated classrooms, and one-on-one interactions with support staff. Upon completion of these capital improvements, Wornick’s physical footprint will reflect best-in-class learning spaces for all students. Research indicates that roughly 1 in 20 or 25 students has a language-based learning difference, such as dyslexia or dysgraphia. Looking ahead, forecasts are that 1 in 30 students will receive an autism spectrum diagnosis—and Wornick is no exception. Wornick continues to evolve its multi-pronged approach to providing every student in the school with a values-based education.

Classrooms are not the only spaces where Wornick’s diverse learners will receive the instruction and support that will help them thrive. Eilath elaborates, “You need a subset of professionals in order to support students, and these people—school counselors, learning specialists—need a place to meet with students individually or in small groups.” The Bay Area’s educational institutions at all levels are hard-pressed to attract and retain excellent teachers, partly because the cost of living is so high. Central to Wornick’s Reconstructing Our Future campaign is the board’s commitment to substantially increase teacher salaries. Eilath comments, “We are investing not only in teachers’ salaries but also in teacher spaces. One of the beautiful additions to the new building will be an expanded teachers’ lounge and balcony for professionals to work, convene, and socialize.” The reimagined space will be a tangible expression of Wornick’s respect for its educators.

Creative spaces are also essential for students to develop their motor skills, emotional intelligence, and a love of learning. In the 2010s, with the proliferation of on-screen learning, many schools—Wornick among them—deprioritized their libraries, often partially or fully converting them to computer labs or other digital learning spaces. Wornick’s former library shrunk to make room for a beautiful makerspace, a highly popular addition. Then, during Covid, when space was desperately needed, the library was decentralized, its collection distributed among classrooms. Now, a decade and a half of data confirms that teaching reading through iPads and other devices is effective in terms of hard skills, but that it does not develop “softer” skills in the affective and emotional realms—in short, a thirst for knowledge—in the way that reading a physical book does. In light of this, a central piece of the renovation is a 5,000 square foot Innovation Center housing a library, learning pods, and gathering spaces. Eilath remarks, “Allow me to make a metaphor: With our new physical spaces, we want to widen the doors of our school, to bring in more students, to accommodate more types of learners. We will absolutely be able to do this without adversely impacting the learning environment.” 

Eilath’s advocacy for diversity and inclusivity is informed by a wealth of data as well as first-hand experience. He cites studies confirming the benefits of having a heterogeneous learning environment in elementary schools, when children develop empathy and care for others, and adapt naturally to having classmates who learn differently. He reflects, “I attended a Jewish day school, but my sister, who is deaf, wasn’t allowed to go to the school I went to, because she couldn’t learn Hebrew. That had all sorts of impacts on who she became as an adult. She lives a Jewish life, and her kids actually go to Jewish day school, but it took a long time for her to find her community. At Wornick, we want a diversity of learners in our school, and we want to make Jewish education possible for a wider swath of the community.” 

His vision is optimistic and synergistic. By integrating all of these different learners, and ways of learning, into Wornick’s social fabric, the school leverages what these students can contribute to their fellow students’ development, to the Jewish community, and to the future. Eilath concludes, “We strengthen our future communities by helping every student become a leader, and by ensuring that we can support as many students as possible.”