Hidden Sparks Receives Major Grant from The Covenant Foundation

Enhancement and Expansion of Professional Development Programs for Jewish Day School Educators

New York – Jan. 27, 2011 – Hidden Sparks is the recipient of a 2010 grant from The Covenant Foundation, which supports creative approaches to educational initiatives perpetuating the identity and continuity of the Jewish people, officials announced today.

The $150,000 grant will allow Hidden Sparks, an organization devoted to increasing the capacity of Jewish day schools to address the needs of children with learning challenges, to enhance its professional development curriculum and to expand the reach of its programs.

“School can be frustrating, demoralizing and lonely for children with a learning disability,” said Debbie Niderberg, Executive Director of Hidden Sparks. “Often they suffer in silence, feel misunderstood and may fall through the cracks. The teachers themselves may be frustrated. They might recognize a child’s struggles but lack the specific knowledge and skills to provide accommodations or make a meaningful difference.

“This is one of the goals of Hidden Sparks – to empower teachers by helping them to understand and pinpoint where the student is struggling and providing learning strategies to assist them. The training and coaching not only deepens their understanding of learning and their repertoire of strategies, but also positions the schools to be better equipped and attuned to a greater range of students.

“This generous grant from The Covenant Foundation will help us adapt the program to the specific needs of Jewish schools, and expand our reach so that more educators and students may benefit from it.”

The initiative by Hidden Sparks, and the Foundation’s support of it, underscores the recognition that students with learning differences should not miss out on Jewish education because day schools lack expertise to meet their needs, officials said.

Specifically, the grant will allow Hidden Sparks to adapt its professional development curriculum and materials for educators at Jewish day schools, rather than relying on curricular materials based on general, secular models. The grant will also allow Hidden Sparks to expand its teacher-training programming to three new cities in the United States.

Currently, the Hidden Sparks teacher-training program is used in nearly 30 yeshivot and Jewish day schools in New York, New Jersey and Boston. A distance-learning program reaches hundreds of additional educators across the country.

“The Covenant Foundation is injecting vitality into Jewish educational realms, promoting and encouraging new ways of thinking, supporting unique ways of interacting within and beyond the community, and growing Jewish community into the new century,” said Eli N. Evans, Chairman of the Foundation’s board of directors. “The potential of this new set of grant recipients is future-oriented and significant in all respects.”

“We are particularly interested in acknowledging creativity in Jewish education and going where risk and innovation co-mingle,” said Harlene Winnick Appelman, Executive Director of the Foundation. “These new grantees have ideas and approaches of great promise for success, effect and replication elsewhere. They are changing the face and nature of Jewish education. This initiative by Hidden Sparks is a solid example of that.”

The Covenant Foundation (www.covenantfn.org) is a program of the Crown Family Foundation and the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA).