BASIS is an acronym in both English and Hebrew: Bay Area Schools Israel Synergy / BAtei Sefer Israel San Francisco.

BASIS strives to bring Jewish students and their families closer to Israel, and to strengthen the connection of our youth to Israel and the Jewish people by making Israel a core part of every school's academic program and culture.

Recognizing that each school is different, BASIS supports a "customized" approach, which includes:

• Helping the schools create fresh and engaging age-appropriate Israel curricula, so students will learn what Israel is and why it is important to them;

• Twinning/partnering schools with schools in Israel, facilitating peer relationships for students, faculty and families, including visits, social networking, co-curricular programming and other ways to bring Bay Area students, faculty and families together with Israeli students, faculty, and families;

• Learning about Israel through arts and culture - music, dance, theater, literature/poetry, visual arts - both as lenses with which to understand and connect to Israel and to express our connections to Israel;

• Working with school leadership and communities (including students, teachers, administration, lay leaders and parents) to establish and articulate a consensus vision for Israel's place in the school and how the school will connect with Israel inside and outside the classroom.

To accomplish all this, we are:

• Providing all the schools with expertise in Israel education, twinning/partnerships, arts & culture, family education, and visioning and organization development;

• Paying for one part-time Israel education coordinator for each school to manage the program;

• Supporting a representative leadership team in each school to establish a vision for Israel education in the school;

• Providing professional development to Israel educators in the schools, including a community of practice for all the Israel education coordinators;

• Running seminars and workshops here and in Israel for the educators and leadership teams, during the summer and throughout the school year to promote Israel education in the schools;

• Providing grants to each school to achieve their Israel education goals.

Click here to read all about the Summer Israel Forum that brought together more than 70 representatives from 11 Bay Area day schools.

Contact Michal Morris Kamil x 151 for more information.