Across the country, non-Orthodox Jewish day schools have struggled with low enrollment, leading to closings and institutional pivots.
In Cincinnati, though, Rockwern Academy is bucking the trend.
After a period with no 7th and 8th grade middle school — and years of flip-flopping on whether to have one — the middle school is being relaunched with an intention to stay.
“We believe that there’s significant interest from large portions of [the student body for] staying through eighth grade,” said Rabbi Laura Baum, head of school at Rockwern.
“We felt that the school was in a position of strength…it was the right time to reinvest in a middle school.”
Driving the decision are Rockwern’s positive enrollment and retention numbers. The school has around 250 students (about half of whom are in its pre-K early childhood education program).
For the main K-6 school, retention has skyrocketed over the last few years from around 67% to almost 90%.
“Families are choosing Rockwern, and then choosing to stay at Rockwern, more than they did in the past,” Baum said.
The middle school is planned to fully launch by the 2026-2027 school year, with an aim to have roughly 25-35 students total.
But this past year has been an unexpected pilot program. For three students, wanting to stay beyond 6th grade, Rockwern created a 7th grade program, and they will have a separate 8th grade next year, too.
Though small, the ad-hoc program speaks to the growing interest families have in staying at Rockwern.
“The conversation [for parents around staying] is no longer, ‘Will we, won’t we,’ but, ‘This exists, and I want to do it, or I’m thinking about it,” said Joel Ellison, president of the Rockwern board of trustees, an alum of the school, and a parent of a Rockwern student.
More than just extra grades
On one hand, a middle school can be just a continuation of the previous grades.
But for Rockwern, it’s also an opportunity to create a unique experience. Developmentally, 7th and 8th graders can explore subjects like the Holocaust, Jewish history, and Israel much more deeply.
With greater educational depth also comes greater responsibility. The right middle school program can support students as they also start establishing their place in the broader world.
Baum is thinking about the middle school as being “really focused on leadership and personalized learning and social opportunities with kids, with students from other schools locally, or Jewish day schools in other cities — opportunities for them to kind of live out their Jewish values.”
The pilot 7th grade got to see that approach in action over the last year. They went on an overnight trip to Washington, D.C., with students from Jewish day schools in other cities.
“Those are the kinds of partnerships and relationships that we’re building now and test driving,” Baum said.
Intentional school design is something Baum has been thinking about since she came to Rockwern seven years ago.
“One of the things that I’ve said since I got here is, if we were going to build a day school today, for today’s modern Jewish families, what would it look like?” she said.
There’s a balance between preserving Rockwern’s identity and its core work, while also evolving for a new age. Being clear about the value add of a private school — smaller class sizes, more flexibility for teachers, a tight-knit community — also helps guide the way.
That doesn’t mean public schools are somehow worse or bad, Baum said. Just different.
“What can we offer Jewishly that can’t be offered by public schools or other independent schools?” Baum said as a guiding question for Rockwern. Figuring out good answers has “gotten people excited about being here.”
Attraction and retention
Despite several years of global crises — ranging from the pandemic to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and skyrocketing antisemitism — Jewish day schools have seen an upside.
In hard times, community becomes ever more important. More families are showing an interest in, and transferring, to day schools like Rockwern.
“We certainly saw an increase in enrollment during COVID, and many of those families have stayed,” Baum said.
“Post Oct. 7, our numbers haven’t shifted dramatically, but I do think for those families who are here already, and for those families who are making a choice about school, there’s a sense of safety and protection,” she said.
“You know that you’re sending them to a place that it’s like a family and is a community.”
In practical terms, that also means former students and their families coming back to Rockwern after stints at public schools, or younger siblings staying longer at Rockwern than their older siblings did.
But global crises are not exactly a sustainable business model. Instead, Rockwern has found appeal not just on the merits of quality private school, but also on Jewish pluralism.
“If you want the Jewish piece, that’s something that only we can offer, even for families for whom the Jewish piece isn’t the central reason they’re here, but it’s nice to have,” Baum said. “I think those are the families we’ve done a really good job in recent years of attracting and retaining.”
Rockwern offers a variety of Jewish electives, ranging from text study and Jewish value-framed activities to Hebrew classes. Having that choice is a draw to families to engage with Judaism in the ways that are best for them.
But success with families is also about making sure Rockwern doesn’t feel like an isolated bubble.
“We are a pluralistic day school, but both in the Jewish studies and the general studies, they’re taught with an eye out to the rest of the world,” said Ellison, the board president. “It’s not just like, ‘Oh, here’s what happens here in our little community.’ It’s, ‘How do we exist within the broader world?’”
That’s also important framing for families thinking about public school — traditionally seen as the more worldly step after Jewish private school.
Still, there’s a balance between being worldly and grounded in history, tradition, and heritage.
“The few people that I have talked to, those who have wrestled with public school versus staying at Rockwern or coming back to Rockwern, is, these elementary and now middle school years are just so vital for our sense of [Jewish] identity,” Ellison said.
“So it’s a matter of wanting that to be strengthened, in order that they can engage with the world through that context, when they might finally go off to public school or a different school for seventh or ninth grade.”
