Torah Day School of Houston
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Torah Day School of Houston is a Jewish Day School in Houston established in 1977 under the auspices of Chabad Lubavitch Center the Texas Regional Headquarters. It currently offers quality Day School education for grade K-8 in addition to its Early Childhood Center for eighteen months through four years old.
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[edit] About
Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff opened the school along with visionary parents [1] to provide quality Jewish and General studies education for the Houston Jewish Community.
With over thirty years of educational expertise to its credit, Torah Day School of Houston infuses its students with a traditional Jewish education, comprehensive in scope, while simultaneously incorporating a quality general studies program.
The school's well-rounded, dual curriculum eliminates after school religious classes as it provides rich, daily Judaic learning experiences for pre-school through eighth grade students.
[edit] Campus
Over thirty years of growth and service for Jews of all ages and walks of life, the school is now being transformed into a new state of the art campus. Official artist renderings show the state-of-the-art facility as an impressive display of modern architecture and ingenuity. Central to its design is a circular “Vessel Ramp,” which is situated purposefully at the building’s front entrance. This feature is symbolic of Chabad’s mission and, according to its philosophy, is life’s greatest challenge: "The molding of the world as a vessel for G-dliness."
Torah Day School will benefit most from the project, in terms of added square footage, as it stands to gain eight new classrooms; the expansion of all existing classrooms and library space, both Judaic and general; the addition of dedicated computer and science labs; the establishment of an 18-month-old early childhood development program, which will be housed in the all-new preschool wing; the creation of a new assembly hall and teachers’ resource room; and the building of a sheltered rooftop playground. Worth noting is that the current Center, which was founded in 1976, and was the first Lubavitch Center in the United States to have been built from the ground up, was not initially designed to house a full-time day school. This apparent problem was benign in the school’s infancy, when its student body was comprised of less than a dozen students. Today, however, that number has grown to more than 120.[2]
In addition they recently announced the acquisition of approximately two acres of land adjacent to the current one acre facility. The center, will now blossom to a complete three acre campus in the middle of an urban Jewish area of southwest Houston. The land will be used for much needed additional parking and playing fields and will be reserved for future development[3].
[edit] Accreditation & Affiliations
- Texas Alliance of Accredited Private Schools (TAAPS) [4]
- National Accreditation Board of Merkos - Central Organization for Jewish Education
- The Jewish Federation of Greater Houston
- A beneficiary of the United Jewish Campaign[5]
- Torah Umesorah - National Society for Hebrew Day Schools
[edit] Administrative Staff
- Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff - Head of School
- Mrs. Chiena Lazaroff - Director
- Nancy Epstein - Principal
- Rabbi Simcha Morgenstern - Youth Director
- Rabbi Yaacov Vidal - Middle School Judaic
- Mrs. Chanie Lazaroff - Preschool Curriculum
- Mrs. Shelley Kohr - Admissions
[edit] External Links
[edit] Notes
- ^ TDS Community
- ^ Chabad Center expands, preschool wing, assembly hall, rooftop playground and more; Jewish Herald Voice, January 25, 2007, Front Page
- ^ More Land More Activities, Chabad.org News, Talk of the Planet (26)
- ^ TAAPS Membership Listing
- ^ Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, Where the Money Goes
