{"id":37253,"date":"2021-08-20T01:55:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T08:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37253"},"modified":"2021-08-19T19:47:33","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T02:47:33","slug":"three-new-heads-of-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/08\/20\/three-new-heads-of-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Three new heads of school"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right are new heads of school Ian Mills (Shalhevet Girls High School), Sabrina Bhojani (Richmond Jewish Day School) and Rabbi Barak Cohen (Vancouver Hebrew Academy).\u00a0<\/strong>(photos from interviewees)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Three new principals will be joining the Metro Vancouver network of Jewish day schools this fall. Richmond Jewish Day School, Shalhevet Girls High School and Vancouver Hebrew Academy will all be under the helm of new administrators who bring decades of varied experience to the community.<\/p>\n

Ian Mills, who has served as Shalhevet\u2019s social studies teacher for the past six years, is taking over from Meira Federgrun, who has led the school for the past four years. RJDS\u2019s new principal, Sabrina Bhojani, steps into the shoes of outgoing principal Ronit Amihude, who was at the helm for three years. And Rabbi Barak Cohen will be VHA\u2019s new head of school this fall, replacing Rabbi Don Pacht, who served as the school\u2019s head for 17 years.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mills, who was born and raised in Dundas, Ont., received his bachelor of arts from McMaster University and his bachelor in education from the University of British Columbia. This past spring, he was accepted into a two-year master\u2019s program at Simon Fraser University.<\/p>\n

He also has a broad teaching background, having served as a substitute teacher in Melbourne, Australia, as well as at King David High School. Even when he was studying at UBC, Mills said teaching wasn\u2019t far from his life. He supported himself as a ski and snowboard instructor at Grouse Mountain, garnering both awards and promotions for his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want students to be true to themselves and recognize what is special about who they are and what they bring to the table,\u201d Mills told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cSometimes in education, the grade you receive on a project or test becomes the measuring stick of who you are as a student. Instead, I want students to realize that skill sets come in a wide variety of forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the recent updates to the provincial curriculum will help teachers lend support to students\u2019 individual strengths, including \u201cinterpersonal skills, social\/personal responsibility, leadership, and a host of other ways people are valued \u2013 I applaud the fact teachers now have more opportunity to foster these aspects of students.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bhojani, who was born in Ontario, grew up in Metro Vancouver and considers it her home. She received a bachelor of science and a bachelor of education from UBC, as well as a master\u2019s in educational leadership and training from SFU. She served as faculty in the teacher education programs of both SFU and UBC, and worked for the B.C. Ministry of Education, where she developed curriculum and testing methodologies. As a school-based educator for the B.C. Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, she taught teachers about the importance of agricultural and food knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe learning about agriculture is an essential component of being a global citizen in the 21st century,\u201d Bhojani said.<\/p>\n

She has also worked as an educational consultant for Canadian School Bahrain, a nonprofit whose mandate is to empower children with confidence and the \u201cmoral values of integrity, responsibility, respect and courage,\u201d in addition to academic excellence.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharacter education is an important part in developing the whole child and is essential in helping all members of the school community to learn, understand and practise behaviours that reflect universal ethical values,\u201d said Bhojani. \u201cIt is essentially what guides us to do the right thing, even when it\u2019s difficult to do so. I believe this is true of all faith-based education, and these kinds of enriching values certainly apply to Jewish education today and tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cohen was born in Davenport, Iowa, and studied at Ohr Somayach\u00a0and the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem while completing his smichah<\/em> (rabbinic ordination). He holds a bachelor\u2019s in behavioural science and a master\u2019s in educational leadership from Bellevue University in Nebraska.<\/p>\n

Cohen is no stranger to British Columbia\u2019s Jewish community. He served as rabbi for Aish Hatorah in Victoria before taking a rabbinical position in St. Ives, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. As rabbi for the local Masada College, he launched an enriched Jewish studies program called Torah Stream that became fundamental to teaching elementary school children Hebrew and giving them the building blocks and confidence to study Torah.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe curriculum was based on standard religious studies programs and outcomes found in religious schools worldwide, and accompanied Masada College\u2019s outstanding general studies offering,\u201d Cohen explained. The program meant that congregants no longer had to bus their elementary school-aged children an hour each way to Sydney to attend Hebrew classes. Cohen was later appointed head of Masada\u2019s elementary school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would define my outlook in Jewish education as one of looking at our incredible history of Jewish scholarship and recognizing that we don\u2019t need to reinvent the wheel,\u201d Cohen told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cAt the same time, there\u2019s always room to better our practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cohen, that means \u201cfinding ways to more fully engage our students in the depth and breadth of Jewish wisdom, translating that wisdom into 21st-century know-how and building strong foundations in meaningful and relevant knowledge and practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jan Lee<\/strong>\u2019s articles, op-eds and blog posts have been published in <\/em>B\u2019nai B\u2019rith Magazine, <\/em>Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, <\/em>Times of Israel and <\/em>Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right are new heads of school Ian Mills (Shalhevet Girls High School), Sabrina Bhojani (Richmond Jewish Day School) and Rabbi Barak Cohen (Vancouver Hebrew Academy).\u00a0(photos from interviewees) Three new principals will be joining the Metro Vancouver network of Jewish day schools this fall. Richmond Jewish Day School, Shalhevet Girls High School and Vancouver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20758,3076,20753,20759,1049,1353,20754,3331,529,3332],"class_list":["post-37253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-barak-cohen","tag-education","tag-ian-mills","tag-principal","tag-richmond-jewish-day-school","tag-rjds","tag-sabrina-bhojani","tag-shalhevet-girls-high-school","tag-vancouver-hebrew-academy","tag-vha"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}