Westchester Day School is a Modern-Orthodox day school serving the Westchester Jewish community. With an Early Childhood Center thru 8th grade, the school was established in 1948 and is currently serving nearly 400 students. WDS began a partnership with Hidden Sparks in 2015, after Judith Talesnick, a past Hidden Sparks Coach, became the assistant principal at the school.

Ms. Talesnick was excited about bringing Hidden Sparks programs to the school, “We were hoping that Hidden sparks would help promote a common language about students’ strengths and challenges amongst our faculty.  In addition, having an external coach and subsequent internal coaches help promote dialogue amongst teachers and increases the culture of learning.”

Hollis Dannaham, the Hidden Sparks Coach at the school, reflects on her first year coaching there, “I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to work with the dedicated and experienced teachers at Westchester Day School. They are open to looking at and discussing students through the Hidden Sparks Learning Lenses and trying new strategies to better support their students’ success.  I look forward to continuing our work next year as well as training new internal coaches to build the capacity in the school to support the Hidden Sparks program for years to come.”

Hidden Sparks is excited to welcome Lauren Kaplan, the WDS Learning Center Coordinator, into the 2017-18 Internal Coach Cohort, and looks forward to training additional coaches in the future.