Jewish Education Association Adopts Code on Employment of Teachers

A national code of professional practices designed to assist Jewish communities in the United States and Canada to develop professional standards of employment of teachers in their religious schools was approved today at a meeting of the board of governors of the American Association for Jewish Education.

The principles and recommendations of the code, completed after two years of study and research by the AAJE’s National Committee on Teacher Education and Welfare, will serve to guide school administrations in such areas as placement, teacher’s duties, tenure and work schedules. It also proposes policies relating to salary and national standards for vacations and leaves, retirement and fringe benefits, and adjudication of controversies.

A special section of the code addresses itself to ethical practices for Jewish teachers, 9,000 of whom are currently serving Jewish schools in this country and Canada. Other projects to improve the status of the Jewish education profession which have been formulated by AAJE and widely adopted by Jewish communities include a national retirement and life insurance program for Jewish teachers.

Many of the code’s recommended practices are based on principles and regulations developed both in the general education field and over the years by central Jewish educational agencies and associations of Hebrew schools in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Newark, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Rochester, St. Louis, San Francisco, Savannah and Toronto, Canada.

“While many cities, spurred by their central educational agencies, have developed employment policies and codified them, taken broadly, however, problems and relationships persist in the field of Jewish teaching which make necessary the formulation of national standards of fair and equitable conditions of work,” Philip W. Lown of Boston, president of the AAJE, and Samuel H. Daroff, of Philadelphia, chairman of its board of governors, declared in a joint statement.

“The National Committee on Teacher Education and Welfare of the AAJE therefore is pleased to present this set of principles and suggested practices to guide communities in developing proper and mutually beneficial professional standards. These proposals are a synthesis of intrinsically Jewish values and accepted modern-day social thought and practice. It is hoped that they will help normalize employment and working conditions in Jewish teaching and produce the most effective teaching-learning conditions in Jewish schools.”