Today we’d like to introduce you to Chana Kaller.
Chana, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Our school began as an extension to the Chabad Russian Center, a Jewish community created to serve the needs of the Jewish Russian Community of South Florida. We wanted a Jewish school where young families feel comfortable sending their children, despite their own limited or minimal connections to their Jewish traditions and roots. Creating a bilingual setting, where other families share similar backgrounds, seemed like a fitting way to do so. Being a trained and experienced educator in the Early Childhood Dept, it was only natural that I was nominated to found and direct this project.
Over the years, we have opened our doors to Jewish families from all walks of life, but our classrooms remain bi-lingual, sometimes trilingual, always including Russian. Our community-based school welcomes families into our School Family, where we build connections that last a lifetime. Together with our little friends and their families, we explore and experience Jewish holidays and traditions and have successfully infused our students with a strong sense of identity filled with pride and joy! Our program is based on our belief that children with strong social skills and healthy emotional regulation will succeed in all their endeavors in the future. Our staff is trained extensively using Conscious methods, practicing and modeling self-regulation, strong social skills and teamwork. We began our school using Montessori methods to teach important academic skills, but over the year, we have created a special blend of Reggio inspired, exploration-based and child-led learning practices using an abundance of Montessori materials and practices. Over my 20+ years of teaching in this field, I have become an advocate and voice for children. This has become a lifetime passion and I continue to educate myself so that I am always aware of best appropriate practices when raising and educating our children.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There is a Jewish proverb that teaches us: One who says “I did not put effort and succeeded,” don’t believe him; One who says “I put the effort in and did not succeed,” don’t believe him; One who says: “I put effort in and succeeded,” Believe him!!
Our journey had lots of bumps along the road. Our location was small, albeit with wonderful grounds, and limited our ability to grow. The building was old and required expensive maintenance. To maintain an affordable tuition level, we need to raise a lot of funds from within the community. With all the unrest on a global level, this has become increasingly difficult as well, and we often run on a deficit.
We were forced to move from our location when our landlords resolved to begin a new project on the property and we moved to a new location that required thousands upon thousands of dollars to renovate. We want only the best for our students, and with the help of the Finker-Frenkel Family Foundation, we moved into our current location in August of 2019. The new location has room for us to grow, lots of outdoor spaces and beautiful classrooms. We built our new garden, even bringing some of our trees and plants from our previous location, and the students enjoy tending to our fruits and vegetables and plants daily. The multiple areas outside, allow for natural exploration and making the best of our year-round sunny weather.
Please tell us about The Gan Frida.
I think what sets apart from other schools in our area is our strong foundation of social skills. All of our staff are trained extensively and continuously throughout the years and are successful at building school families in their classrooms. There are multiples structures set up in the classrooms and on a school level that supports the idea that children are created in the image of Gd and thus are capable and competent. We believe in each child’s ability to succeed in their own path and regularly support each one in their own way.
This progressive approach allows for each child to explore, ask questions, take the time to explore and discover and learn at their own pace. Teachers model self-regulation and the environment fosters the ability to build confidence, teamwork and emotional intelligence. In addition to our training our staff, I have the honor of training other early childhood teachers in multiple schools in South Florida, New York and Boston. We often welcome teachers from other schools to come and observe the work of our teachers as well. These abilities greatly enhance their ability to succeed academically and many of our students enter Gifted classes when moving on to Elementary.
Above all, we are a community school. We build strong ties among our families, staff and students and we cherish our school family as an integral part of our larger community.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I don’t believe in luck by chance 🙂 Everything presented before me is a gift from God. Sometimes it’s hard to see, but believing that God has our best interest at hand, gives us the strength to overcome the difficulties that have come our way. He has showered us with blessings along the way and we feel blessed to be doing this holy work of caring for his precious children!
Contact Info:
- Address: 2221 NE 171st street
- Website: www.thegan.com
- Phone: 3056928814
- Email: chani@thegan.com
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