Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School

Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School
Location
Miami, Florida USA
Information
School type	Jewish day school
Opened	1973
Headmaster	Ezra Levy
Grades	PreK-12
Number of students	1050
Campus type	Urban
Color(s)	Blue
Athletics	FHSAA
Team name	Lions
Accreditation	SACS; AISF
Affiliation	Jewish
Website	ehillel.org

The Scheck Hillel Community School, known prior to 2012 as the Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School, is a private, Jewish, co-ed pK–12 school near Aventura, Florida just north of the city of Miami. It is located adjacent to the Michael-Ann Russel Jewish Community Center. It is the largest Jewish Day school in South Florida, and one of the largest in the country. Hillel is both a 2011 Blue Ribbon and IB Middle-Years Program school.

About the school

The school's enrollment is close to 1000 students. Class size in the Lower School ranges from 16-23 depending on grade level. The school has a large international student community, with students ranging from countries all over the Americas, Europe, and Israel. The school consists of an Early Childhood, Lower, Middle and Upper School. It was founded in 1973.

The school contains a "Dual-curriculum" which instructs students in both Judaic and Secular studies, as well as ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) primarily for students coming from South America.

Hillel also contains a program for children with certain disabilities called the Kesher (meaning "connection" in Hebrew) program, run by patient and understanding adults who know how to guide and nurture their students.

Unlike Jewish Day Schools in The Solomon Schechter Day School Association, Hillel is affiliated with the Orthodox movement Judaism, though Orthodox students themselves remain a small minority.

History

Hillel was first conceived in the late 1960s by Dr. Joel and Peshe Dennis, Rabbi Max A. Lipschitz, and a handful of other founding fathers and mothers. The kind of traditional Jewish day school they envisioned, now known as The Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School, was born in early 1970.

In 1976, Hillel moved to its present site in North Miami Beach and expanded its campus to over 10 acres (40,000 m²) adjacent to the Michael-Ann Russel Jewish Community Center. Years later, they realized another vital goal with the opening of The Ben Lipson Hillel Community High School.

When construction was completed on the high school wing in 1994, the '94 and '95 seniors were there. As the fresh concrete was being poured, they left their footsteps imprinted in what has since come to be known as the "Footsteps to the Future."[1]

Athletics

Hillel offers intramural and interscholastic sports such as tackle football, cross country, golf, soccer The soccer team is currently in the Class 1a State Finals 2013 )volleyball, basketball, tennis, baseball, crew, and fencing.

Divisions

Hillel consists of three divisions:

• The Juda and Maria Diener Lower School, which includes all of the early childhood education (PK) and grades Kindergarten to grade five.
• The Henrietta Scheck Middle School, which includes grades six through eight.
• The Ben Lipson Hillel Community Upper School, which includes grades nine through twelve.

External links

• Hillel Home Page