Rabbi Hillel Baron made the commute from Columbia to Baltimore so his kids could attend a Jewish day school for nearly 25 years. Soon, parents and students can avoid the long journey as the first Jewish day school in Howard County is set to open this fall.

“If you have a school, then you become a destination, not the path to the bigger community,” Baron said.

The Tamim Academy of Howard County plans to open in the Chabad Lubavitch Center for Jewish Life in Columbia, where Baron is co-director. Though the school will start small with only kindergarten and first grade, eventually it will expand to offer its general and Jewish education to students through eighth grade.

It was always a dream to have a Jewish day school in the community, Baron said, but when talking with a friend who shared how he opened a school in Burlington, Vermont, through Tamim Academy he said, “maybe we can do it, too.”

Tamim Academy is establishing a network of schools by partnering with Chabad centers to build off of existing preschools, providing support to make it easier for communities to open a day school. Currently, Tamim has 16 locations across the U.S. and Canada with staggered grades of kindergarten through fifth grade as each school works to grow to eighth grade, said Holly Cohen, founder of Tamim.

There are about 1.6 million Jewish children in North America and about 292,000 attend Jewish day schools, Cohen said, leaving her thinking that those who don’t attend need something different. It’s common for Orthodox Jewish children to attend day schools, but those who are unaffiliated often don’t attend, she said. Tamim hopes to focus on developing “a desirable path for them to go,” Cohen said.

“But I think what we really see is that when you build an elementary school in a community, it just enriches the opportunities for communal connection, for the Chabad to connect with the Jewish people, for the Jewish people to connect with the Chabad, for the Jewish people to connect with each other in a community,” Cohen said.

The academies are unique in using an “HQ” model, similar to a franchise model, Cohen said. Every school follows the same curriculum designed and curated by Tamim with measures in place to ensure fidelity to the network’s educational approach. In Hebrew, tamim means pure, perfect or complete, and at the center of the educational framework for the academies is the whole-child approach, helping students grow outside of academics.

The whole-child approach and ability for individual, independent learning align with the beliefs at the center of the Gan Israel Preschool at the Chabad Lubavitch Center, said Chanie Baron, founder and executive director. Chanie Baron has been involved with the preschool for more than 30 years and being able to see the values of the preschool carry through to students in the day school feels “marvelous,” she said.

Chanie Baron will serve as the director of education for the Howard County day school, and Rabi Baron, her husband, will serve as director of operations. She said she’ll aid in creating a smooth transition from students in the preschool to the day school.

“And I just realized that every child could feel like they’re on top of the world, and they should have that feeling straight through school,” Chanie Baron said. “So I’m hoping that that’s what will develop with Tamim coming here.”

The school is set to open in the fall with a minimum of six students for a kindergarten class or nine for kindergarten and first-grade programs, Baron said. The Chabad already has open land, a playground and classroom spaces, but the team is working to determine what’s needed for an elementary school classroom setup and the necessary licenses and state requirements.

Tuition for the Howard County day school will be approximately $12,500, Baron said, which includes before and after school care. There will be teachers for secular subjects, Judaic studies and Hebrew immersion, which is another component of Tamim Academy. The goal is to make a Jewish education affordable for parents who would usually have to pay for religious school and childcare before or after public school, Baron said.

According to a 2019 Brandeis University study, there are about 9,100 Jewish households in Howard County. With Jewish day schools in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas, many families in the past have moved to be closer to the schools, Baron said. Receiving a day school education helps people become more committed and involved in their congregations, Baron said, which could help grow the Jewish community in Howard County.

There may also be greater interest in Jewish day schools, Baron said, especially due to antisemitism in the U.S. following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel by Hamas. To combat antisemitism, Cohen said, Jewish children must be raised to be strong, smart and proud.

“So, what we’re doing, I think, is the answer to antisemitism, which is, like don’t worry about the antisemites. Worry about our kids,” Cohen said. “Worry about raising strong, courageous, proud Jews, and then it doesn’t matter what noise is happening around them, they’re not going to be touched by it.”

While the classes may start small at Tamim Academy of Howard County, Baron said he’s expecting the school to take off and grow, expanding the space as needed.

“Things happen in increments, small increments,” Baron said. “Good things that last don’t happen overnight, you know, a little at a time.”

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