JKHA middle school faculty members Ari Levine and Linda Litland participated in the yearlong Civic Spirit Educator’s Cohort Fellowship through the Civic Spirit organization. Civic Spirit provides training to educators who work in faith based schools across the country and promotes civic education Litland and Levine officially completed the training that began in the summer with a week in their training program and have been participating in ongoing training all year long.

The fellowship provided Levine and Litland with enriching and academically rigorous professional development, pedagogical coaching and discourse training. They combined this professional educational experience with classroom application. Through the fellowship, the seventh graders gained as students information, skills and motivation to be engaged participants in the civic life of their community and the political life of our democracy. As a goal, Levine and Litland connected civic knowledge and experience with the key directive of the school’s mission statement, which reads in part “to embrace secular knowledge and American democratic values.”