San Diego, Calif. (special) -- The seamless integration of Judaic course work with secular studies has been -- and will continue to be -- a priority of the San Diego Jewish Academy as it expands its kindergarten through eighth grade program all the way through high school graduation. 

Headmaster Mike Kessel, who completes his tenure with the Academy at the end of next month, remembers that when he came to San Diego in 1990 after having served as education director for the United Herzliya School in Cape Town, South Africa, Jewish studies and secular studies were viewed as separate entities. 

"Now we have a system whereby we will actually plan a whole integrated set of material," Kessel said. "You will have the art teacher, the music teacher, the computer teacher, the general studies teacher and the Judaic teacher sitting there and deciding 'okay, we are going to do this thing for the next six weeks and here is how we are going to write the material and this is how we are going to present it to the children.'"  The reason such care is taken to present the course work together is so that "there is no distinction in students' thinking about the general world and the Jewish world," Kessel said.  Over the years SDJA has invested in learning how to develop an integrated curriculum, Kessel said. "Dr. Roger Taylor is kind of a guru on integration generally and we have sent every summer a group of teachers to seminar with him. We didn't just send the math teachers together. In the very first year, we sent history and literature and English teachers. The following year, it was the Spanish, Judaic and science teachers. They spent the whole week learning to write integrated curricula.  "Most of our teachers have now done this and, as a matter of fact, this coming August, because he got to know our school so well and the teachers in it, we have persuaded Dr. Taylor to do what he calls his 'annual national summer seminar,' where he gets 1,500 people, right here in San Diego. He is going to do this at Beth El (home of SDJA's La Jolla campus). And most of our teachers will go to this; it has kind of reached a point where we are going to round off the whole thing."  Karen Rund, who has been a teacher and administrator at SDJA's San Carlos campus since 1979, offered

SDJA Pioneers -- Mike Kessel served  as headmaster of the San Diego Jewish Academy while Karen Rund was principal of the San Carlos campus.

some examples of how the integrated learning approach works: 

"In the fifth grade, for instance, we study American history. Growing up in public schools in this country, I never knew there were significant Jewish people in American history--their names never came up for me. And so we have integrated that so the kids would have a sense of pride. ...Even when we study Martin Luther King Day, which is a secular holiday, we relate it to other events of freedom for the Jews." 

Similarly, she said, "when we study Columbus discovering America, we bring in the Jewish portion and what was happening in Spain at that time, and talk about Marranos (converts who secretly retained their Judaism) and other things like that." 

Even in math courses, there are opportunities for integration, Rund said. Jewish foods are cooked using measurements. Also, "in mathematics we do a stock market unit, in which the kids buy stocks, but we will bring in a rabbi and talk about the ethics of the stock market. Would you make money on a stock that, for instance, raises tobacco or sells tobacco that might be harmful to people?" 

The incoming executive director for San Diego Jewish Academy is Larry Acheatal, who currently serves as superintendent of the 12-school, soon to be 13, South Bay Union Elementary School District, which serves 10,000 students. 

Acheatal said one reason he accepted a job running a school system with about 500 students--or 20 times as small--"was the realization that the children who go to this school and graduate from this school -- 99 percent of them are going to be leaders, whether it is in medicine, business, law or whatever field. So the only question is 'what kind of leaders are they going to be: what kind of business people, what kind of doctors, lawyers are they going to be?' Are they going to be people who exemplify strong Jewish values of concern for others and of giving back to the community -whether it is financial, time, effort, or resources?" 

The idea is to teach the students that "there is a reason why we are here, and it is to make things better for our communities and all mankind," he said.  Another reason, Acheatal said, is because the position offers the chance to actually develop a new high school -- not just the building, but also selecting faculty from scratch and determining "more importantly what should a Jewish high school education be?"  "You don't get that opportunity many times in life--not just to replicate what has been done before but to do something qualitatively, significantly different and to be able to integrate and mesh Jewish values with secular, so that they are not separate and distinct."  Jewish children who don't go to Jewish day schools -- but instead attend public school five days a week and

SDJA Executive Director -- Larry Acheatal formerly served as superintendent of the  South Bay Union Elementry School Distict.

attend religious school afterwards and on weekends -- tend to compartmentalize their experiences, Acheatal said. 

"I know what I did, and I see what my own children are doing," he commented. "Here (at public school) is real history; here (at religious school) is this Jewish stuff" the students tend to think. "Now there is an opportunity to present it the way it really is, which is interrelated." 

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Currently San Diego Jewish Academy operates two elementary school campuses, grades K-5, located at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Carlos and at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla. Additionally, a middle school, grades 6-8, is operated on the La Jolla campus. Although SDJA had a ninth grade class in the past, it allowed the program to lapse. But with the commitment to have a community high school, a ninth grade class will be offered this September. 

The students who enter the ninth grade class this September will become part of SDJA's first tenth grade class in the Year 2000; first 11th grade class in 2001 and the first 12th grade class in 2002. The high school's first graduation ceremony will be held in 2003. 

Charged with developing a qualitative program, which will be well respected by admissions officers of Ivy League colleges, is Dr. Jeff Davis, SDJA's first high school principal. 

Davis, currently the principal at Coronado High School, has "one of the top high schools in the country," according to Acheatal, who selected him. In the six years that Davis has been at Coronado, he has taken it "from a good high school--which one would expect from the socio-economics and demographics of that community-- to a National Blue Ribbon School (one of 166 in the country). 

"Then, just last year, Coronado was recognized from among the national blue ribbon schools as one of only seven in the country as a 'New American High School' by the U.S. Department of Education," Acheatal said. 

While the Judaic piece of the high school is important, "I believe a high school will not be successful for the broadest base of the Jewish community if the secular program isn't second to none," he added.