Susie Tanchel

“At JCDS, we are striving to create a courageous community that supports our children in facing challenges directly rather than turning away from them. To me, this work feels essential for Jewish day schools — which are, by their nature, particularistic — as we grapple with how to respond to an increasingly universalistic world.”

Dr. Susie Tanchel has served as Head of School at JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School in Watertown, MA since 2011. During her tenure there, she has focused on infusing school life with intentional pluralism and further strengthened a learning community of teachers who are trained to foster community through commonalities, as well as through differences.

At JCDS, Ms. Tanchel has worked toward modeling moral leadership, and recently led her faculty through professional development exercises in which they defined seven “Habits of Heart and Mind” – including empathy, integrity, and ability to hold multiple perspectives – that anchor and inform JCDS’ educational program.

The scope and sequence for teaching the Habits are being developed by JCDS faculty in developmentally appropriate ways, including creating opportunities for students to consider characters’ feelings in a biblical text, to hear another student’s viewpoint during Writer’s Workshop, or to take into account a friend’s perspective on the playground.

In her five year tenure at JCDS, Ms. Tanchel has continued to professionalize the school by building a learning community of teachers in which teaching is understood as a craft that requires ongoing growth and depends on teachers collecting records of practice to use as data to inform and refine practice. She has also created a leadership team that combines the educational and non-educational school leaders, strengthened the financial position of the school, and set a clear updated educational vision built upon the founding mission of JCDS.

Ms. Tanchel’s has also taught DeLeT Fellows and candidates for Masters of Teaching in Secondary Education at Brandeis University, the Curriculum Initiative summer Bible program for teachers of Jewish students attending independent high schools, and led seminars for experienced teachers. Prior to her appointment at JCDS, she served as a Tanakh (Bible) teacher and Associate Head of Gann Academy. She has also co-chaired the Head of School group on pluralism for RAVSAK and served on the faculty of Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ Genesis Program.

Ms. Tanchel earned a BA and PhD from Brandeis University, concentrating in Psychology and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Ancient Near East and Biblical Studies, respectively. She also completed certificates through the JTS/ Day School Leadership Training Institute, the Principal’s Center at Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Mandel Center/Teacher Educator Institute.