Shulamith High School part of Harvard project

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Shulamith High School for Girls in Cedarhurst is one of the first schools to join a new national campaign to mobilize middle and high schools to prepare young people to be constructive community members and citizens, and hopefully who create a better world.

Led by Harvard’s Making Caring Common project, the Caring Schools #CommonGood campaign aims to motivate schools to take action to help mend our country’s fractures and strengthen democracy. “We are proud to be recognized for our research-driven, Head-to-Heart mission,” Shulamith High Principal Rina Zerykier said in a news release.

The campaign seeks to advance the following specific goals by working with schools nationwide:

Deepen students’ care for others and their communities;

Increase equity and access for all students in the college admissions process; and

Reduce excessive achievement pressure in communities where it is detrimental to students.

These goals align with and build on Making Caring Common’s successful Turning the Tide initiative that has engaged more than 175 college admissions offices nationwide. Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, helps educators, parents, and communities raise children who are caring, responsible to their communities, and committed to justice.

“Shulamith High School is proud to be an early leader in joining The Making Caring Common Project,” Ricky Gaerman, the school’s director of Student Learning, said in the release. “We look forward to working with the Harvard Graduate School of Education and our school community, to make our commitment to building a constructive community of character and caring — for each other and the larger world — a reality.”

“Our country is at a crossroads,” said Dr. Richard Weissbourd, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Faculty Director of the Making Caring Common project. “We need to mobilize the great strengths of Americans to prepare young people to build strong, inclusive communities and to protect democracy. This work has perhaps never been more important.”

As an “early leader” to the program, Shulamith High School commits to strengthening its evidence-based social and emotional learning and character education. “Research suggests that character education and social-emotional programs are effective tools in building empathy, social awareness, and kindness in teenagers today,” Gaerman said. “It is integral that our students learn to truly understand Areyvut — what it means to care for others and take responsibility for their community,” added Zerykier.