Not Only the President, Also a Client

“I’m not only the Hair Club president, but I’m also a client.”

Any kid of the ’80s knows that line. Sy Sperling delivered it, deadpan and earnest, in one of the most famous commercials of the decade. It lives in my head right alongside “Where’s the beef?” (which, yes, I still say far more often than I should). Lately, Sy’s line has been on my mind a lot, because it’s admissions season.

Our marvelous Director of Admissions and Community Development, Rebecca Leicht, and I are in full sales mode. Rebecca is leading tours every day, I’m meeting with prospective parents, and together we’re doing our very best to share what makes this place so special. We have not yet proven a link between a Beit Rabban education and hair regrowth, but our results speak for themselves: alumni who stay connected to each other and to the school, students who take real responsibility for their community's culture, and families who care for one another. Teachers report deep satisfaction in working with each other and with parents. We have a culture of learning, self-reflection, striving, and celebration. A culture of conversation that is both real and respectful. A culture of partnership in every direction.

It’s a pretty great product. And Rebecca and I know that not only because we watch it happen every day, but because our own families live it. Like Sy, I’m also a client. As many of you know, I’m not just Beit Rabban’s Head of School. I’m also a proud Beit Rabban parent.

Twelve years ago, I came here looking for the best educational home for my son, who is now 18. Within two years, his younger sister was enrolled in the Gan, and I had switched careers to come work at Beit Rabban. My son was part of our very first middle school graduating class, and this year my daughter will graduate with our sixth. My eldest son also spent a year here on what we fondly call his “year abroad” from another local Jewish day school. And my husband is the 8th grade class parent, a fact I discovered for the first time in a meeting of the parent body. So, suffice it to say, I relate to Sy. And like Sy, I love sharing what I love. This school has shaped my family’s life. It has given me a path to meaningful work, the honor of being part of so many families’ lives, and a perfectly good excuse to wear rainbow glitter clothing to work.

Being both the purveyor and the user means I see the whole picture. I see the effort behind the scenes: teachers preparing, learning, and processing together, and the steady work of building trust between teachers and parents and between teachers and students. And I see the results at my own kitchen table.

It isn’t always pretty. I don’t recommend that everyone work in the same place their children go to school. Your own children have a great deal of feedback for you, especially in adolescence. Interestingly, by 18 they have enough distance to see it for themselves and put it into words. And every once in a while, I catch a glimpse from my current adolescent too. I recently read my daughter’s high school application essays, and the way she described what Beit Rabban taught her stopped me in my tracks: a culture of active participation, learning how to truly have a conversation, and building the muscles to advocate for herself and to care for others.

To be clear, she has also complained to me endlessly about this year’s changes to our reading buddies system, along with roughly a thousand other things I should fix about the school. So even if this story inspires you, please think twice before going to work with your children.

This week, during parent-teacher conferences, I get a particularly close view of our teachers’ work. I see how much they prepare: gathering data, collaborating with every colleague who teaches a given student, and working with students themselves to reflect on their learning.

Then I have the privilege of sitting across from those teachers and hearing them talk about my own child. I tell prospective families every day that their children will be known at Beit Rabban, and I put my name behind that promise. Sitting in those conferences, I see how true it is. Her teachers know her strengths, her challenges, her interests, and her worries. They see her as she is, and they see potential she may not yet recognize in herself. They support her at her learning edges, whether academic, emotional, or, most often, both at once. Most importantly, they teach her to see herself whole: to celebrate both accomplishment and effort, to name challenges, unpack them, and figure out how to meet them. They teach her exactly what she describes, in her own words, as what she learned here.

And because I read the conference notes and progress reports for every one of our students, I can tell you this with confidence: my child is not the exception. She is the norm.

Now it’s your turn.

I often tell kids not to trust anyone who opens with “trust me.” So I didn't open with it; I saved it for the end. Trust me, because I’m not just the Head of School. I’m also a client.

But here’s the thing: so are you. Every family in this community knows something about Beit Rabban that no tour, website, or brochure can fully capture. You know what it felt like the first time a teacher described your child better than you could. You know the friendships, the conversations at pickup, the moment your kid came home and taught you something. That is the most powerful recruitment there is. Families don’t usually choose a school because of an ad. They choose it because someone they trust looked them in the eye and said, “This place changed our lives.”

So I’m inviting you to make your own commercial. It doesn’t need a jingle or a toupee. Just tell your story to a friend, a neighbor, a cousin, or the parent you chat with at the playground who’s starting to think about schools. Share what you love, and why.

Then help us take the next step. You can connect them directly with Rebecca at rleicht@beitrabban.org, or invite them to our open house and share our admissions page: https://www.beitrabban.org/admissions. We want every family who would thrive here to have the chance to find us. Step one is making sure they know we exist. That part is up to all of us.