Ruth Gass, Head of School
Rabbi Joel A. Alter, Rav Beit HaSefer and Assistant Head of School
Terri Hootstein, Assistant Head of School for Development and Communications
Sue Stibel, Director of the Lower School; Coordinator of General Studies and Curricular Integration, K-8
Dorit Zmiri, Director of the Middle School; Coordinator of Jewish Studies and Curricular Integration, K-8
Sharona Givol, Director of the Hebrew Language Program

Ruth Gass, Head of School
Ruth became our Head of School following an international search in 2006. Her philosophy of education, range of expertise in secular and Jewish education, and commitment to excellence made her a unique match for this leadership role at JCDS.

Ruth has a B.A. from Vassar College, a J.D. from Boston University School of Law, and an M. Ed. from Harvard University’s School of Education. She became involved with JCDS through a chance meeting in 1998, after which she became a Trustee of the school and shared her time and talent serving on a variety of committees.

Immediately prior to becoming Head of School at JCDS, Ruth was an adjunct professor and field instructor for the Public Elementary School Masters Program at Brandeis University. She was also a teacher, a school coach, and a researcher at The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis and a field instructor from DeLet, a Brandeis program to train Hebrew Day School teachers. In addition, Ruth was Head of School at a K-8 charter school in Franklin, MA and Middle School Head at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, an independent K-8 school.

Rabbi Joel A. Alter, Rav Beit HaSefer and Assistant Head of School
Rabbi Joel Alter (Rav Yoel) directs our T’fillah program, guiding teachers in classroom T’fillah and in cultivating our students’ growth in the culture and language of prayer. Rav Yoel coordinates our extensive program of holiday and other whole-school observances, which are cornerstones of the JCDS culture and community. He teaches Toshba (Jewish text, thought, and practice) in grade 7. In each of his roles, Rav Yoel helps assure the fulfillment of the school’s mission as an intentionally pluralistic learning community.

Rav Yoel joined JCDS in 2007 following service at Baltimore’s Shoshana S. Cardin School, and The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland. He trained as a rabbi and Jewish educator at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and Jerusalem, and participated in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s TICHON program. Rav Yoel received training for school leadership in the Day School Leadership Training Institute, a joint venture of JTS and the AVI CHAI Foundation. He earned his BA in Jewish History at Columbia University and is himself a product of Jewish day schools in Philadelphia.

Terri Hootstein, Assistant Head of School for Development and Communications
Terri brings to JCDS her extensive experience in the development world. She was most recently the Director of Major Gifts at Heading Home, a non-profit organization that works to end homelessness in Greater Boston. She has worked as Director of Development for First Night, Inc. and for the Greater Boston Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, as a Development Coordinator for the Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary, and as a Development Assistant for the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston. Terri is currently President of the Board of Women in Development, an organization dedicated to advancing women in the development profession. She has also served on the Young Leadership Board of Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) and the Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly (JCHE).

Sue Stibel, Director of the Lower School; Coordinator of General Studies and Curricular Integration, K-8
Sue joined our Educational Administrative Team in the summer of 2007. She has an enormous amount of experience as an educator in many areas, including her work as an Educational Consultant through the Tufts University Center for Applied Child Development and training she led for the Massachusetts Department of Education BayState Readers Grant. She also served as a literacy, social studies, and reading consultant in many schools in the Commonwealth, where she both wrote curriculum and trained teachers. In addition, Sue has twenty years experience coordinating curriculum at Jewish day schools, including fifteen years at Cohen Hillel Academy in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She has taught graduate level education courses at Lesley University Graduate School of Education. Most recently before coming to JCDS she served as a field instructor for the DeLeT Program and as an instructor for the undergraduate Teacher Practicum and MAT Reading Foundations courses at Brandeis University School of Education. Sue brings a great deal of enthusiasm to her work at JCDS.

Dorit Zmiri, Director of the Middle School; Coordinator of Jewish Studies and Curricular Integration, K-8
Dorit joined our Educational Administrative Team in the summer of 2007. In addition to her administrative role, Dorit teaches Tanakh to our eighth graders, and she is on the Executive Committee of RAVSAK (The Jewish Community Day School Network). Prior to coming to JCDS, Dorit was Jewish Studies Department Chair at American Hebrew Academy (AHA) in Greensboro, North Carolina for six years. At AHA, Dorit supervised the Jewish Studies staff, developed and implemented the Jewish Studies curriculum, and taught in grades 9-12. Prior to her work at AHA, Dorit worked for over ten years with elementary and middle school students at B’nai Shalom Day School in Greensboro and Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Massachusetts. Dorit is the 2006 recipient of the Louis Hillson Memorial award for distinguished leadership and commitment to Jewish education from Hebrew College. Dorit has a BA in Art History from Tel Aviv University and a Masters in Judaic Studies from Hebrew College, where she graduated valedictorian and won several prizes, including one for writing Hebrew poetry.

Sharona Givol, Director of the Hebrew Language Program
Sharona joined our staff as a Hebrew teacher and as the Hebrew Coordinator for our Middle School in 2002. The demands of her responsibilities as Hebrew Coordinator expanded significantly as JCDS grew and as Sharona worked to develop and implement the Proficiency Approach to Hebrew language instruction in the Middle School grades, and subsequently in all grades. Her early work on the Proficiency Approach was linked to a Covenant Foundation grant JCDS received for that purpose. Sharona has been sharing the school’s successes in this realm with Jewish educators near and far, through workshops and through written material for several years. While continuing in her capacity as Hebrew Coordinator at JCDS, Sharona is now also the Director of Lab Schools at “Hebrew at the Center: Advancing Hebrew Teaching and Learning”. In her work at the Center, she proudly uses JCDS as the first lab school model for other programs beginning their journeys as “Proficiency schools”. Sharona’s achievements at JCDS gained significant recognition in the community at large, and she received a Keter Torah Award from the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston in the spring of 2008.

Sharona was born and raised in Tel Aviv. She has an extensive professional career in education. While teaching grades 5-9 in one setting in Israel, Sharona was responsible for helping foster children adapt to their new families and communities. She managed a center for children with learning disabilities, working with dyslexic Middle School students. Later she co-founded the Community Day School of the Northern Golan Heights. From 1986 to 1997 Sharona worked for the “Logal” educational software company in Israel, as Director of Reading Comprehension and Language Arts.