VTT responds to growth

LAUREN KRAMER

Cathy Lowenstein is the first to admit that Vancouver Talmud Torah is really cramped for space. The head of school, she’s seen enrolment numbers rise considerably in the decade she’s presided over Vancouver’s largest Jewish elementary school. There were 409 students in the 2004-2005 school year. Today, there are 508 students occupying a space originally constructed for a maximum of 450.

“Without expanding the school, we won’t be able to continue productively,” she told the Jewish Independent. “We’d have to take our enrolment down and deny some families a Jewish education. This expansion project is urgent.”

Lowenstein is referring to the $20 million capital campaign to finance the two-part project. One will be the construction of shared underground parking with Congregation Beth Israel, and the second will be the addition of 42,000 square feet to the school and the revitalization of the remaining 38,000 square feet.

The expansion will be tailored to support 21st-century learning skills, which means supporting students in a more project-based, collaborative environment, explained Andrea Wilkinson, VTT’s director of development. “Twenty-first-century learning is very different, it’s not about sitting in rows of desks – it’s built around creativity, collaboration and communication, with an eye to the fact that learning happens anywhere.”

While that space for collaborative learning is not available right now, students have been ingenious about finding it themselves, Lowenstein said. “They find it under stairwells, in the washrooms, alcoves and the gymnasium, but we need more space so we can take future enrolment of up to 650 students, so that we can accommodate a preschool that’s tripled in size over the last 10 years, and so that we can continue to support over 170 students who require remedial or enrichment programs. Not having the space to do that properly is really impacting us.”

Wilkinson agreed. “We’re crammed to the hilt here,” she admitted. “We’ve been innovative about making space, but we’re at a point where we have to expand.”

Last summer, VTT built a portable structure on its playground to accommodate the Grade 4 class, previously housed at Beth Israel. Another small piece of playground is being used for temporary parking for faculty. That means the playground is only 44 percent of the size recommended by the province. The expansion will enlarge it, remove the portables and redesign the playground in a way that enhances play.

The school has received a gift of $5 million from the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Foundation, contingent upon raising the remaining $15 million. As of press time, $10.9 million had been raised – excluding the Diamond gift – and the capital campaigners were focused on the final $4.1 million, which they hope to raise by the end of April. If this can be done, VTT can break ground and begin the expansion in June 2014. If not, the school will have to wait an additional full school year before it can start.

“We need the community to support us, whether their gift is $18, $1,800 or $18,000,” said Sue Hector, fundraising co-chair. “Eighty percent of donations will come from our top major donors, but we really need the community to pick up 20 percent of the campaign.”

Hector, a VTT parent for the past 13 years, emphasized that a gift to VTT is a gift to the future of the Jewish community. “For me, this expansion means that kids in Vancouver’s Jewish community will always have a community school that will be open to them. We’re doing this to make sure everyone’s kids and grandkids get to experience how wonderful VTT is.”

Without the expansion, she added, the school will have to revert back to 450 kids and by the time the 80 children currently enrolled in Grade 2 reach grades 6 and 7, the school will not have room for them.

Alan Shuster, campus campaign co-chair, has been thrilled by the breadth of support across the community. “What’s blown me away is that we talk with parents or grandparents whose kids last attended the school 30 years ago and they’re just as keen on helping us achieve success,” he reflected. “Because we’re such a tight community, people will give us their time. They listen and, when we tell them the current state of the school, how it’s doing so many good things and contributing so much to the community, right away, they ask, ‘What can I do to help?’ Very few people have turned us away. That said, we have another four million dollars to go, and that’s a large number.”

VTT has more than 100 parents and community members committed to and volunteering their time for this expansion project. Michelle Gerber, co-president of the board, is one of them. “We are the stewards of the legacy created by the founders of this school,” she said, adding that her uncles, Jack Aceman and Abe Jampolsky, were both past VTT presidents. “The people who came before me made sure my kids could have the education they have today. We’re the shepherds of the future, and it’s our duty to do this for the generations to come.”

The board is in its seventh year of balanced budgets and Gerber said the ramifications of not moving forward with the expansion would be severe and would be felt in the community for years to come. “We cannot afford not to do this,” she insisted. “This is a once-in-a-generation project, the right thing to do for the future. There comes a time when we have to do what needs to be done, and this is that time.”

Lauren Kramer an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

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