“Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes” doubles as a brilliant David Bowie lyric and CESJDS’ motto over my time at the school. Everywhere I turn as I walk through these halls which I first sauntered through six years ago, I see changes.

I see new people come and go as grades enter and graduate and as students figure out if the school is the right place for them.

I see the art on the walls switch from high school play headshots to middle school ceramics classes to graphic design from all grades.

I see new teachers find their way through the school, develop relationships with their students and take on new challenges.

All of these changes are truly wonderful. They demonstrate the strength and creativity of our student body and faculty, the ones who really make the school a great place to come each morning and learn.

But not all change is good.

Take the schedule changes. Last year’s schedule for high school was a mistake. It caused student-athletes to miss the same classes over and over, and painfully caused my chemistry class to always be last every Friday. The countless Zman Kodesh time changes, namely changing it to the beginning of the day even though it was considerably better attended after first period, made limited sense without an extensive explanation.

Take the new middle school, for example. The relationships I formed with teachers (shoutout to chemistry teacher Daniela Munteanu and Spanish teacher Silvia Kurlat Ares) in eighth grade were kept and strengthened through high school. The opportunity to start learning just as I would in high school from a younger age gave me the experience I needed to jump right in and start to learn with no adjustment in freshman year. The current middle school students will not have these incredible opportunities.

The new middle school shows the change that most worries me: JDS’ mission. My brother left JDS before this year because he and my family saw the school more of a place for “making mensches” than teaching children. While there is certainly virtue in the creation of the best Jew possible, the school should not decide what it means to be a “good Jew.” The whole point of Judaism, to me at least, is that it instills a set of values that every member of the tribe uses to set their own path. When I was in middle school and certainly throughout high school, JDS was about instilling values and giving us the incredible education needed for our futures. It was not about forcing us to talk about feelings or pushing us to be part of certain Jewish institutions, as many middle school students think it is now. I hope the high school does not gain this mentality.

I worry that changing the middle school, building the iLab, and more are symptoms of the issue that an institution must change in order to keep donors. Who wants to donate to something that works? There is a reason why big donors to universities build a new building or start a new program. Change keeps places moving. But change is not always good.