Admissions Team Is Tipping the Scales

Connecting with the inspiring Admissions team

There’s no secret sauce or magic potion when it comes to filling Bialik’s classrooms with students. But there is a strong belief in what we do, and why and how we do it, that is palpable amongst our families. Two avid believers in the Bialik brand are our dynamic Admissions team, Director of Admissions Danielle Waltman and Admissions Officer Bethany Baram, who both chose Bialik for their children and are now helping other families start their Bialik journeys.

We caught up with Danielle and Bethany — in between their many school tours, answering inquiries and supporting prospective families — to get to know what makes them so passionate about being able to open the doors to Jewish education to children in the Greater Toronto Area.

Mother of three Bialik graduates, Danielle has worked in Admissions for 13 years. She has very positive feelings about the high quality of education that her children received here, although, initially, her husband needed to persuade her before she agreed to send their kids to a Jewish day school.

“My nieces and nephews went to Bialik. It was beyond impressive,” she says. “For me, it was being able to look at them and see the academic excellence, the sense of Jewish identity and heritage, Zionism and the close-knit community. That’s what tipped the scales when it came time to decide on a school for my children.” So convinced was Danielle after a few years that she decided to leave her career as a social worker to take on an Admissions role at Bialik. And she has never looked back.

Danielle has served, and continues to serve, our new families at the Viewmount Branch. But when the call came to set up the Himel Branch, Danielle enthusiastically answered.

She fondly remembers searching for families to launch the new branch. Her “office” was in a trailer on an empty plot of land in Vaughan, now the site of Himel West. It took a huge amount of community outreach for Danielle and Bialik’s administrators to attract the first families to be part of our opening in September 2013 — 64 students in all.

Fast forward ten years and two more construction phases, and

Bialik has expanded into a second facility — Himel East — and has an enrolment of more than 550. As Himel came of age, Danielle realized she couldn’t keep up with the demand on her own, and the school brought Bethany onto the Admissions team.

As an active Himel parent, Chair of the PTA and a very strong supporter of her children’s Bialik experience, Bethany was perfect for her new role.

Reminiscing, Bethany remembers her tour with Danielle the year before her eldest child entered JK. “I felt that grassroots community vibe. That was a really big attraction because, even though I knew the intention was for the school to continue to grow, my hope was that the community feeling would stay. And it certainly has.”

Bethany suggests that it’s the combination of academic rigour, our community feel, and an acceptance of the different ways families live Jewishly at home, that are important to our families. “Those three pieces are working together and that’s why people love this school,” she says.