Donna Klein Jewish Academy

My kids went to the school from kindergarten until eighth-​grade. Both of them wanted to leave a few years before but I encouraged them to stay. Looking back, I think I made a big mistake. While the elementary lower school is pretty good, the middle school is terrible. The communication is awful and the administration is impossible to deal with. They then took someone who had absolutely no administrative experience and made her the head of the entire school. Absolutely insane. She’s not even very friendly and when she is, it’s blatantly phony. Overall, I’m very glad that my kids are out and in high school. I will add that both of them were not prepared for math or science at the AP level in high school.

I went to High School here from 2005 to 2007, 11^th and 12^th grade. Donna Klein Jewish Academy is such a fantastic, close knit experience, I couldn’t have asked for better. I actually transferred here from a public school in Pennsylvania, but I was welcomed right away as family. I was actually lucky because within a month of starting school, most of my grade took a two month high school experience in Israel, so I really got to bond with them there. Over the course of my two years at Donna Klein, we went to Israel twice, once on the Alexander Muss High School in Israel Program, the other on the March of the Living. I can say that the school pushing these trips made for some of the most important experiences of my life. My whole grade at the time of graduation was 20 students, which means I was really able to get to know all of them very well. Socially, you’d think that having less students wouldn’t be a good thing, but it really does add a level of closeness to the school. You not only bond with you class, but all the other classes and students in the school. They did offer a lot of athletics, but not many clubs to join. Nevertheless, most of the social experiences at Donna Klein are very beneficial and prepare you for whatever experiences you have after school.
On the education front, I was very pleased with all aspects of it. Most of the courses were the standard courses (math, science, history, English), but also they had plenty of AP and honors courses as well. Class sizes were very small, which had the great benefit of having lots of attention and care. I think my biggest class was maybe 12 kids, and that was a huge class for there. Donna Klein offered a college advisor to help all of us prepare for college. I can’t say she was the best college advisor, but because the school size was so small, she met with each one of us on a regular basis, which was always nice to have the extra attention. They also offered a good series of electives, which was nice to be able to choose at least one class on our own.
In terms of religion, we basically had a session in the morning where you could choose between a more religious or secular daven to attend, maybe a total of 5 choices. We also had a Judaic studies class, and a hebrew class. I thought it was a very healthy amount of Judaism for the school, and allowed you to choose whatever denomination suited you best.
Most of the faculty and staff were extremely nice, friendly, and helpful. Because the school is so small, you really get to know them as mentors beyond just teachers and staff, so it is always nice to have people who really do care. Obviously, some were better than others, but all of them you shared a lot of time with and got to know.
Without naming anyone particularly, some of their upper management are some of the the worst people I have ever encountered in my entire life. There is more politics in administrators offices than in the United States Congress, and that is putting it lightly. People on top only care about themselves and advancing their own agendas, not helping any of the students or faculty in anyway. These people were so detached I don’t think they even knew the names of students in the school, and were talking a school of less than 100 kids that they are the head of! Part of being in a close knit community like Donna Klein are the advantages of everyone having special attention, and these administrators have none of it. They don’t listen to anything logical and just want to serve what is best and easiest for them while making the most money possible. One side of me wants to give Donna Klein a one-​star because yes, the head of school and upper administration were that bad and in that way, I was disgusted to have given them a dime, but I choose to remember the good parts of Donna Klein. My advice to parents and students would be to at all costs avoid the people who run the school at the administrative levels and just stick to the faculty and staff. Unless it benefits the bottom line for the school the head of school won’t help you, and may even go out of her way to hurt you.
The price of going to school here is also not cheap, and most likely going up in the future. I cannot speak to current facilities, but I can say that the private school atmosphere is one I have to highly recommend, it is worth the money.
When I went to school at Donna Klein, our whole school was about 84 students total (9^th — 12^th), and the physical location was in a trailer. I know that they have now moved into the actual JCC area, which I’ve seen and is very good. Either way, the key factor at Donna Klein is community. Because it is a small school, you are able to get special attention in terms of education, and have a close group of friends. Transferring into a new school can be tough, but Donna Klein made not only the transition easy, but into a wonderful experience. I cannot recommend Donna Klein Jewish Academy highly enough.