Rabbi Mordechai Loiterman, Toras Chaim’s principal, recently requested that board members and parents write articles about what is happening in the school. With so much occurring at Toras Chaim, it is hard to choose.
While it would be interesting to write about the chess club that is forming and instructed by a local, nationally recognized chess champion, that topic does not speak to the school’s great curriculum. So, it probably makes sense to focus on the fact that the standardized testing results this year were far beyond the national average: mostly over the 90th percentile, across the board in all subjects.
Still, the issue with focusing on testing is that it only shows that the students are smart and test well. To really highlight the uniqueness of Toras Chaim, it probably makes sense to feature the middle school’s accomplishments in math, science, and literature and the fact that students who have gone to other schools over the past few years have reported back that they were put into accelerated programs due to their superior knowledge of literature, math, and science. In fact, Toras Chaim recently received a letter from an out-of-state institution where one of its students is now enrolled. The letter said that the school was vey impressed with this student and that Toras Chaim must be doing something different than other Jewish schools to produce students with such high caliber abilities in both Jewish and secular studies.
The truth is that if it is necessary to focus on one thing about Toras Chaim, it should probably be how happy the kids are every day. Walking through the halls, listening to the learning, the laughter, and the sounds of a well-organized school say it all.
To learn more about Toras Chaim or arrange a tour, call 757-686-2480.