Looking Back with Gratitude, Looking Ahead with Purpose
Our annual report is a great exercise in taking a step back to reflect on our achievements. Enrollment is up 17% over three years, Camp Ruach has grown every year, and we've kept tuition stable — all while enhancing our facilities and academic offerings.
At Hillel, we are committed to excellence and constantly looking for ways to improve. Although this focus tends to have us always looking ahead, our annual report is a great exercise for us to take a step back and reflect on our achievements over the past year.
Just before the start of the 2014/15 school year, we had the privilege of hosting the JCC Maccabi Games and JCC Cares chesed program on our campus. It gave us an opportunity to showcase Hillel Day School to an international audience, and the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive.
Over the past year, we implemented the security enhancements that had been subsidized by our Department of Homeland Security grant. In addition to those projects, we invested in additional security upgrades and trainings, and added a fulltime School Resource Officer to complement our existing 24/7 security presence.
In an effort to keep tuition stable over the past 3 years in the face of rising costs, we have found ways to reduce operating expenses in a way that still enables us to enhance our facilities and academic and extracurricular opportunities. Among our efforts are investments in various systems that have added operating efficiencies and lowered costs. DDC, our school information system, has streamlined our admissions, registration, medical, grading, and communication systems. HotLunchOnline has offered convenience and accountability to our business office, as well as to families participating in our daily hot lunch program. We have recently implemented the MaintenanceDirect application, which has revolutionized our facilities maintenance systems. Very shortly, we will be introducing its sister program, FSDirect, a facilities scheduling component that will continue to add efficiency, organization, and accountability to our daily operation. This past year also saw several upgrades to the FACTS platform, which manages our financial aid applications, and processes all school payments from tuition to after school activities to bussing fees and nearly everything in between.
Boruch Hashem, our enrollment has increased 17% over the past 3 school years, and Camp Ruach has grown in each of its first 3 years, necessitating upgrades and modifications to our facilities in order to accommodate the record levels of enrollment. We pray, G-D willing, that these positive trends continue, and that we are able to offer our children the very best for many more years to come!
Joe Sharp
Joe Sharp is a strategic finance and operations executive with 30+ years of experience serving independent schools and mission-driven organizations.
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