The Leo Baeck Day School thanks all those who supported its first annual campaign, "GetSMART". Overall, we raised $72,000 in honour of Leo Baeck's 36th anniversary, including the Freedman family's matching donation. We thank them for their support, commitment and generosity. This sum will allow us to make enormous improvements in our use of technology in the classroom.

One of our key campaign goals was participation. It was not about how much you gave but that you did give! We wanted to achieve our goal together as a school and as a community. One of the ways our team wanted to encourage this was to recognize the class(es) with the highest participation rate and the results are in: Nursery at the North Campus and a tie between 2A and 6B at the South Campus. Yasher koach, and many thanks, to these classes!

We're Getting SMARTer

We ordered 10 new SMARTBoards for the school, all of which are installed now. Five of the new SMARTBoards are dedicated to the SK classrooms, as the Technology Advisory Committee felt that our younger students would benefit greatly from SMART technology.

As well, the North Campus is the home of our first moveable SMARTBoard, with which we intend to experiment for all sorts of functions: assemblies, religious ceremonies, even gym classes. In addition to the 2 LBPA-funded SMARTBoards installed at the start of the year in the South Campus, this means we have added 12 new SMARTBoards this year alone. We are so excited to give so many of our students – and teachers – the opportunity to use this technology in the classroom.

Overall, this campaign has expedited our ability to reach our technology goals and we are much closer to achieving them. Over 60% of our classrooms at each campus now have access to SMART Technology!