Click on the following links to read about Agnon in the news.

► Eighth Grade Trip Benefits Children in Need ● WEWS TV-5 News (ABC) ● April 27, 2011 http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/eighth-grade-trip-to-israel-benefits-children-in-need

► Johannah Cross: Sun Press “Person of the Week” ● Sun Press ● April 25, 2011 http://blog.cleveland.com/sunpress/2011/04/johannah_cross_sun_press_perso.html

► Agnon Kids’ Lessons Take Them to Israel ● Beachwood Patch ● April 25, 2011
http://beachwood.patch.com/articles/agnon-kids-lessons-take-them-to-israel

► Whiz Kid of the Week: Itamar Nurko ● Beachwood Patch ● April 20, 2011
http://beachwood.patch.com/articles/beachwood-patch-whiz-kid-of-the-week-itamar-nurko

► Agnon School 8th Graders Include Clothing for Children in Need as They Visit Israel / 18 Kids Pack Duffle Bags to Bring Along on Trip ● WEWS TV-5 News (ABC) ● April 13, 2011
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/education/agnon-school-8th-graders-include-clothing-for-children-in-need-as-they-visit-israel#

► Sun Press Calendar of Events: March 31 – April 6 ● Sun Press ● March 30, 2011 http://blog.cleveland.com/sunpress/2011/03/sun_press_calendar_of_events_m_10.html

► What’s Cooking ● Cleveland Jewish News ● March 25, 2011 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/03/25/family/doc4d8b65acacc8c037258457.txt

► Agnon School Benefit Auction: April 3 ● Beachwood Patch ● March 21, 2011
http://beachwood.patch.com/announcements/agnon-school-benefit-auction-april-3

► Jewish Holidays can be Fun ● Cleveland Jewish News ● March 18, 2011 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/03/21/family/doc4d8260609215a604087595.txt

► Purim News Coverage ● WJW TV-8 News (FOX) ● March 18, 2011 ● (No Link Available)

► Early Childhood Sing Shabbat @ Agnon ● Beachwood Patch ● March 11, 2011
http://beachwood.patch.com/events/early-childhood-sing-shabbat-the-agnon

► Young Black Belt Likes to Spar ● Cleveland Jewish News ● March 11, 2011 http://clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/03/11/family/doc4d78f21ab40b0643979309.txt

► We’re Kvelling About Daniel Kaplan, Elected International USY President ● Cleveland Jewish News ● January 14, 2011 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/01/18/family/doc4d2f35040c584076519215.txt

► Hoops Star Makes Happy Transition to Cleveland ● Cleveland Jewish News ● January 14, 2011 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2011/01/18/news/local/doc4d2f29a85e97d253636757.txt

► Educating Today’s Teens ● Cleveland Jewish News ● December 3, 2010 http://clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2010/12/03/news/local/doc4cf7cdbdc1e79130658474.prt

► Chanukah News Coverage ● WJW TV-8 News (FOX) ● December 1, 2010
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.171096842911549.36998.153441411343759

► Local Day Schools Win National Awards ● Cleveland Jewish News ● November 5, 2010 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2010/11/05/news/local/doc4cd30119a8e6d526328018.txt

► Cleveland Rocks More with Naomi Less ● Cleveland Jewish News ● October 29, 2010 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2010/11/01/news/local/doc4cc9ca9f1e76d658083975.txt

► Back to the USSR ● Cleveland Jewish News ● October 29, 2010 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2010/10/29/bar_bat_mitzvah/doc4cc88178bb8bd567491810.txt

► Agnon School’s Lecture Series for Parents Starts October 29 ● The Plain Dealer, Sun News & Cleveland.com ● October 25, 2010 http://www.cleveland.com/parents/index.ssf/2010/10/agnon_schools_lecture_series_f.html

► She’s Making Beautiful Music Here ● Cleveland Jewish News ● September 24, 2010 http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2010/09/24/news/local/next_in_the_city/doc4c9ba60fa6aea129178129.txt

► Orry Jacobs: Sun Press “Person of the Week” ● Sun Press ● July 27, 2010 http://blog.cleveland.com/sunpress/2010/07/sun_press_person_of_the_week_o.html

Chanukah News Coverage ● WJW TV-8 News (FOX) ● December 1, 2010

WJW TV-8′s Facebook gallery features creative chanukiot made by Agnon students.  Photos by Annette Lawless.

See the whole gallery here.

Local Day Schools Win National Awards ● Cleveland Jewish News ● November 5, 2010

By ELLEN SCHUR BROWN
Editor, Family Section

Cleveland’s Jewish day schools were honored last week at the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education’s (PEJE) national assembly for Jewish educators in Baltimore.
. . .

The Agnon School won two awards.

Headmaster Jerry Isaak-Shapiro won first place for “Inspiring Communications from a Head of School” for his column “Teach Your Children Well,” part of a newsletter distributed to parents and the community.

An Agnon video won the People’s Choice award for video marketing. Agnon alumnae Dana Leavitt, Allison Scharfstein and Danielle Weiss produced a video for the day school, which serves preschool through 8th grade, as their high-school senior project. View the video at http://tinyurl.com/3346no6.

Isaak-Shapiro was joined at the PEJE Assembly by board president Orry Jacobs, director of admissions Laura Simon, director of development Laura Leventhal, and director of marketing Kathy Peskin.

Read this article in its entirety at the Cleveland Jewish News.

Cleveland Rocks More with Naomi Less ● Cleveland Jewish News ● October 29, 2010

By ELLEN SCHUR BROWN

Folk/rock duo the Indigo Girls inspired Naomi Less to pick up a guitar and learn how to play. They also, in a way, started Less on her road to becoming a Jewish music educator.

“Their songs had biblical illusions and calls to Jesus. I thought, I could do that, too,” but for Judaism, she says.

Read the whole story at The Cleveland Jewish News

Back to the USSR

A mitzvah project can take you far … in one boy’s case, to Russia and back

BY ELLEN SCHUR BROWN, Family Editor, Cleveland Jewish News, 10/29/10

Preparing for a bar mitzvah can be a trek, but for Beachwood’s Vonya Shiffman, the journey took him all the way to the Russian city of Ulan Ude, on the 5640th kilometer of the Trans-Siberian railway.

The trip to Ulan Ude is nine hours from New York to Moscow and another six hours to the Siberian province of Buryatia. Vonya’s mother Naomi Shiffman had made the trip once before, 10 years ago when she adopted the sweet toddler she had seen in pictures and videos. Shiffman felt it was time Vonya and her older children saw for themselves the orphanage in which he once lived.

Read the whole story at the Cleveland Jewish News.

Related story: Beachwood Agnon School student makes “Cases for Kids” in the Sun Press.

By Edith Starzyk,  The Plain Dealer
Monday, October 25, 2010, 8:57 AM

BEACHWOOD, Ohio — The Agnon School here will host a lecture series for parents starting at 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 29.

The first session will feature Heidi Abrams, a social worker and psychotherapist, talking about “Adolescent Social Dynamics: Helpful Skills to Support Your Child.”

Read the whole story at Cleveland.com.

She’s making beautiful music here

By ARLENE FINE, Senior Staff Reporter, Cleveland Jewish News, September 24, 2010

Ever since professional singer Rebecca Schaberg Marks performed in her first show at age 4, she has loved being on the stage. Musical talent runs in her family. Her grandfather performed on Broadway, and Marks grew up listening to her mother’s “beautiful singing voice while driving in the car,” she says.

From middle school on, Marks’s voice and stage presence earned her lead roles in school performances. She sang with The Cleveland Orchestra’s Youth Chorus and in Temple Emanu El’s choir.

When the classically trained singer, whose repertoire includes opera, jazz, musical theater, R&B and pop/rock, moved back to her hometown, she was able to earn a living as a performer, appearing in Opera Cleveland, The Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater Festival, and “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.” Now, she is starring in the upcoming performance “From Broadway, With Love” at Chagrin Valley Little Theatre.

Although she gets calls from agents to perform in New York, Marks is happy to stay in Cleveland. “I am so fortunate to be asked to perform with the many talented professionals here,” she says.

Marks also values having both sets of her children’s grandparents in town and teaching an early childhood class at The Agnon School, where both her children are students.

Read the whole story at the Cleveland Jewish News.

Beachwood Agnon School student makes “Cases for Kids”

by Faith Hampton, Sun News, 7/9/2010

Beachwood resident Vonya Shiffman, 12, shows off the pillowcases he created with the rest of the Shiffman family for his mitzvah project.

BEACHWOOD — Agnon School sixth-grader Vonya Shiffman’s “Cases for Kids” mitzvah project has turned into a unique entrepreneurial adventure.

Vonya, 12, started his project last December as a part of his mitzvah project for school. He and multiple family members started creating tie-dyed pillowcases for the children who still live in the Russian orphanage where he spent the first years of his life.

Vonya sells the pillowcases for $10 each to friends and family as well as students and teachers at the Agnon School. The Shiffman family helped create 150 pillowcases with Vonya.

“I wanted to raise money for the children’s home and I’m going to buy clothes and shoes for the orphans because they are poor and need money,” Vonya said.

Vonya and his cousin Sam, a student at Beachwood High School, started brainstorming last December about what the project could be. When they came up with the idea of tie-dyed pillowcases they thought up lots of different patterns for the pillowcases.

“We wanted to do something really cool and unique,” Vonya said.

Read the full article at Sun News/Cleveland.com –>>

How should teachers be evaluated? Question being debated in Cleveland and across the country

By Edith Starzyk,  Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/02/2010

CLEVELAND, Ohio — As contract negotiations grind on in Cleveland, one sticking point has been schools CEO Eugene Sanders’ push for a new way of evaluating teachers — “a real assessment of teacher performance,” as he put it in a May 11 update.

But what is a fair and accurate way to grade teachers?

The question is being asked across the country as administrators and unions scuffle over whether evaluations should begin to replace seniority in decisions about pay, assignments and job security.

The answer promises to affect teachers everywhere. Dina Rock from The Agnon School in Beachwood is one of them.

“Evaluation is a very hot topic now, but to me, it’s so scary,” said the 22-year veteran. “How do you evaluate performance when sometimes the goal is to just get the child into school every day, happy and wanting to learn? How do you level the playing field when there are so many variables?

“There are so many effective, wonderful teachers out there who don’t get the recognition they deserve because the difference they make doesn’t show up on paper.”

Rock is part of a small group of educators who have been brainstorming a new template for assessing teacher performance since last year.

Read the entire article at Cleveland.com –>>

Sun Press ● July 27, 2010

A resident of Beachwood, Orry Jacobs was recently elected as President of the Agnon School Board of Trustees.

“I look forward to helping Agnon continue its strong tradition of providing a superb Jewish and secular education and transmitting Jewish values to the next generation,” he said.

Jacobs is a past Director and officer with the Jewish Community Federation and currently serves on several committees there.

Originally from Baltimore, he lives with his wife Sheila, who taught at Agnon for 11 years. They have three married sons and five grandchildren.

Read the original story on the Cleveland.com-Sun Press website.