Twenty-five years after its founding as a single class of three special needs students taught by Laurette Rothwachs, the Sinai School has grown to include two elementary school programs, four high school programs, and two independent living facilities.

As it passes its quarter-century mark, the school’s administrators are using the occasion to celebrate its accomplishments and remark upon how well Orthodox day schools are meeting the needs of children with varying types and degrees of learning and developmental disabilities.

As Sinai has evolved, so has the surrounding community, they agree. Where it was once an uphill battle to convince schools to serve as hosts for Sinai, today they are starting their own programs.

“It’s becoming a more inclusive world,” said Rothwachs, now the dean. “So many local high schools are trying to start serving the higher-end kids,” she said, adding, “That’s wonderful for these kids to be serviced in the school of their choice.”

That certainly wasn’t the case when Sinai began in a classroom in the Hebrew Youth Academy of Essex County in West Caldwell, the forerunner of the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, now located in Livingston. It was then known as the Learning Disabilities Program of Metropolitan New Jersey.

When Sinai’s founders embarked on a search for space, they found that the yeshiva community was not very receptive.

“It was a challenge to find a school that would accept the group and provide a home,” said Rabbi Mark Karasick, a founding parent. None welcomed them in — until they knocked on the door of Dr. Wallace Greene, then principal of the Hebrew Youth Academy.

“Wally Green just embraced it,” said Leo Brandstatter, whose disabled son was a student in that first class. (Greene is now director of Jewish Educational Services for the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Northern New Jersey.)

“I was embarrassed,” said Greene. “Why had I not thought of this on my own without being asked? I was a Jewish educator. That meant you’re supposed to educate all Jewish kids.”

It took nearly two years from his embrace to the beginning of the program.

Laurette Rothwachs remembers the call from Greene that brought her to Sinai. “We were friends since we were kids. We were just keeping in touch, and he was telling me what was going on.” At some point during that phone call, he invited her to come and see the school.

Today, Sinai encompasses not just the original elementary school, still located at Kushner, but also a second elementary school at Yavneh Academy in Paramus, four high school programs (housed at Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck, and Bruriah High School for Girls in Elizabeth, which hosts two different programs), and two independent living facilities.

The student population in the various programs has grown to 130, with 65 staff members.

The school, now headquartered in Teaneck, is the first Jewish day school for special needs youngsters that is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. As similar schools have opened around the New York metropolitan area, they have sought Rothwachs’ counsel and advice. She has consulted with Kulanu Torah Academy on Long Island, Yeshiva Education for Special Students in Queens, and a day school in Florida.

Sinai began when Brandstatter started looking for a school for his disabled son.

“I recognized early on there was not a Jewish day school that could accommodate him, and there was nothing in the works,” he told NJJN. “My wife, Dossy, said, ‘There’s no reason the yeshiva community can’t embrace this challenge.’”

Together with a few similarly situated parents, they began looking for a home for a new school. “There was a sense of ‘let’s do something,’” said Karasick. “We had a common vision — to start a program for our kids so they could get a Jewish education.”

When Greene first approached her, said Rothwachs, who was then working at P’tach (Parents for Torah for All Children), a special education school for religious Jews in Brooklyn begun in 1976, she thought he was joking. But then she recognized the opportunity. “Twenty-five years ago, there was P’tach and a couple of programs. There was almost nothing” for Jewish special education children. “I was excited at the possibility that this could be done outside of New York, and we could start making a difference.”

That first year surprised her.

“The kids progressed that first year beyond their parents’ dreams,” Rothwachs said. “We showed they could learn Hebrew, be integrated into their community synagogues and services, and, at the same time, progress nicely in their secular studies.”

It helped, she said, to have buy-in from the teachers who were not part of Sinai. “It was meaningful for people to see it could be done, for Kushner teachers to come to me and say, ‘Who are you going to give me next year?’ Now we have come to expect that, but back them, we had to teach them, teacher by teacher.”

“It was a tremendous learning experience for the entire population,” said Greene. “It taught children in regular classes a whole dimension of caring and protectiveness, and it reminded teachers that all education is based on the special ed philosophy that every child has their own way of learning — you just have to unlock it.”

The success, Rothwachs acknowledged, grew from confronting a single looming challenge: “How do we get people to understand what our dreams for these kids were?” It was something she shared with parents. “Our goal was never to compromise the ability or goals of the children. We hoped they would go as far as their abilities would take them. For some kids, that meant college; for others, it meant transitioning from school to life skills without the benefit of higher education. The goal is to prepare the children for life with whatever level they can reach.”

Everyone associated with the early days of the school recalled a second challenge that continues to face Sinai: the cost of educating special needs children. That’s why Sinai president David Shapiro, an accountant, got involved nearly 18 years ago, although none of his children attended.

“Sinai is the type of school that we say, ‘There but for the grace of God…’ Any of us could need its services,” said Shapiro. “That’s why it’s an important institution to have in the community.”

The school’s fund-raising efforts reach far beyond the families it serves; its annual dinner, begun 20 years ago, often raises about $1 million. It is also a beneficiary of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, among other donor organizations. But still, that does not cover the costs. Current tuition runs $27,500 for elementary school and $30,500 for high school; even those who pay full tuition receive a subsidy close to $10,000.

“The costs are enormous,” said Karasick. “People under the best of circumstances can afford it, but often, they are not in the best of circumstances. Often they have another special needs child. Even if they don’t, they have other children attending yeshiva.”

He added, “We have parents who are not making, total, what our tuition costs.”

Despite staggering costs, the new school grew up with the children. When they had a host of youngsters ready to move on to high school but not ready for a mainstream yeshiva, they added high school programs at host yeshivot. Some were able to integrate and go on to college. Others would need vocational training and, eventually, after-school support. The most recent additions to the Sinai constellation of programs are two group homes.

Not everything that was tried has worked. In 2002, Sinai opened Hineni at Sinai, a program for children on the autism spectrum and the only program offering therapy known as Applied Behavior Analysis in a yeshiva setting. But that effort closed just four years later.

In an article published in NJ Jewish News at the time, Rothwachs blamed poor enrollment. “All of the parents want the school to stay open. But we’ve been struggling to get enrollment.

“I was the one pushing to try one more year, one more year,” she said. “We hoped and we hoped. We went above and beyond what we have to keep the doors open. It’s just not happening.”

With costs at more than $65,000 per student, they were hoping to gain government funding. But that process required enrollment of 16 and, in hindsight, Karasick pointed out, also undermined the purpose of having the program in a yeshiva setting, since, with such funding, the curriculum had to be entirely secular.

“We couldn’t have a mezuza on the door or study with Jewish books in the room. But that’s what we are,” said Karasick.

Added Shapiro, when the program ended; “I hate to close a program like this. It’s what we’re about. But we just couldn’t afford to maintain that kind of deficit with no end in sight.”

The last 25 years also saw a quiet revolution in schools, as high schools did more and more to serve what Rothwachs calls the “higher-end kids.”

Such success, however, underscores the financial challenges of special education for Sinai. “As they take on the higher-functioning children, we’re left with the middle- and lower-functioning children, and that is much more expensive,” said Shapiro.

Further, Karasick pointed out, “as schools start their own programs, supporters feel they are supporting special education by giving to their own schools.”

At Sinai, students are mainstreamed into host school classrooms and activities whenever possible. So a student like Jana Shulman, who attends the Sinai program at Bruriah in Elizabeth, has the opportunity to play on the school’s basketball team with all the other Bruriah students. At the same time, she could perform in a play just for Sinai students — she played Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Her mother, Tova Shulman of Hillside, who calls Sinai “warm and yummy,” said the school challenged her daughter and taught her how to be a student. She had been at the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth, but was not achieving.

“They just let her sit quietly, but she wasn’t making academic advances. At Sinai, she’s expected to learn,” said Shulman. “So now she’s not just occupying a seat in math, but she’s expected to add and subtract.”

Jana has been at Sinai since the second grade; she is now in the 10th grade and has begun vocational training.

“They’ve introduced her to part of herself she didn’t know existed,” said her mother.

Looking forward, many of the founding parents of the school say they hope Sinai will some day be so successful it will go out of business.

“My dream is for there never to be a need for Sinai,” said Brandstatter. “It won’t exist because the yeshiva structure will accept the kids fully as their own.”

But for now, said Rothwachs, “we will continue to serve our kids.” That means celebrating their successes, one child at a time. “I have so much personal nachas watching these kids come back” and sharing their successes, she said.

After 25 years, according to parents like Shulman, however, Sinai is still the only choice.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind school,” she said.

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