Shakespeare 2025 is a wrap!!! 7th grade culminated their study of William Shakespeare with a performance of excerpts from many of his works. The Class of 2030 now joins the ranks of their fellow upper school students and SIX decades of CTA Shakespeare performers. The annual Shakespeare Festival is a big part of the CTA Junior High experience - supporting creativity, confidence, teamwork, problem solving, leadership, resilience, and more. Thank you to English teacher Ms. Fried and Drama teacher, Angela Barch-Shamell for leading this project for the students. Thanks to Michael Solomon and Eva Golden at the JCC Columbus for helping to bring the stage alive. To see the full performance check out our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/qAjxSRa0eyw?feature=shared Friday morning’s extra performance at CTA was met with lots of laughs from the students in grades 1-6 (and some nostalgic high school students). (fb)

Last week, Head of School, Rabbi Drandoff was able to participate in the Tikvah Marom conference in Miami, Florida along with leaders of Jewish Day Schools across the country. The goal of attending the conference was to explore ways to support our students on how to evolve and succeed in the modern world without allowing technology to stifle emotional and cognitive development. Rabbi Drandoff shared these takeaways: Cell phone use: CTA is on par with many schools in our cell phone policy. It has become universally agreed upon that cell phone create a distraction, which limits student academic and social growth. Reading physical books: Research strongly suggests reading from physical books instills a greater love and mastery for reading than reading from a tablet. CTA encourages parents to read with their children every night to reinforce the love and importance of reading. Human touch: As a society we have to be determined that although it seems like AI is here to stay the human impact on our work, words, perspective and relationships is ultimately irreplaceable. What am I reading? The key note speaker was Dr. Christine Rosen. She authored the book “The Extinction of Experience” - being human in a disembodied world. The book details how every day technologies are replacing the human experience which is ultimately jeopardizing our work ethic and the ability to have patience. We encourage our students to learn, embrace, and demonstrate middot of respect, gratitude, and patience to their parents, teachers, classmates, and all those they encounter. That’s the start of The CTA Way to prepare our students for a life of meaning and success. (fb)