A brief history of Hillel Academy

IN 1967 and 1968, the United Congregation of Israelites mandated the founding of Hillel Academy, with Rabbi Bernard Hooker and Eli Matalon leading the charge of creating a modest, non-denominational school for four to-six-year-old children from the community, and beyond.

Hillel, named after the biblical scholar who was an inspiration to the school’s founders, had on its original board: Chairman – Eli Matalon, who served on the boards of Kingston and Mico Colleges (and later as minister of education), Vice-chair Samuel Henriques, Rabbi Hooker, Alan Delgado, Granville Deleon, Aaron Matalon, Jack Ashenheim, Darryl Myers, Ronald Delevante and Ivan Vaz. They were joined by two educational experts, Mico’s Glen Owen and The University of West Indies (UWI) Aubrey Phillips, as well as Marion Alberga and Dr Marilyn Reid.

Rosalie Goodman was the first principal; Bernice Matalon was administrative co-principal during the first year. Through 1968, Goodman prepared for a start in January 1969 by benchmarking the best prep schools in Kingston and by studying and researching a variety of educational systems, and finally creating a curriculum based on the philosophy of education of Maria Montessori, to foster creativity in children.

The school opened with two teachers and six children in January 1969 in the rabbi’s house at 11 ½ Oxford Road in New Kingston. The first cohort comprised Matthew Marzouca, Douglas Reid, Russell Graham, Guy Alberga, and two Dean brothers, with fees set at £20 per term. By November 1969, 31 students were enrolled.

With a thoughtful and innovative educational and extra-curricular programme, the school grew quickly, outgrowing its initial premises and then even its second home – the Jewish Home for the Aged, located next door. A purpose-built campus was clearly needed.

Hillel Academy’s new home at Upper Mark Way came as the result of some well-negotiated land demarcation during the development of Cherry Gardens, which had resulted in five acres of land set aside for community use. Hillel Academy moved in 1974, with space for 400 students.

It soon became, arguably, the most desirable prep school in Jamaica, and waiting lists for places grew. Students could now complete their entire preparatory school education at Hillel. Samuel Henriques was the board chair for the foundational decade of the 1970s. Rosalie Goodman was followed by Dorothy Davidson as principal; she served for over a decade.

During the bleak environment of late ‘70s Jamaica, a reluctant school board gave its permission for the creation of a high school. Its first board was chaired by Marvin Goodman, and Marcia Davis was tapped to be its first principal.

The first class, in the 1979-80 school year, came largely from the prep school and was composed of Winston Barnes, Gordon Case, Rickey Charley, Chris Cummings, Gabrielle Delapenha, Joanne Espeut, Nicolette Fearon, Peter Foster-Davis, Scott Gilstrap, Veleta Grant, Michelle Gregory, Martin Kinsman, Janina Kumst, Natalie Leboucher, Wendy Levy, Natalie Panton, Jacqueline Reid, Liat Shibolet, Thomas Skellingsted, Maureen Soutar, Chris Spence, Todd Tiffany and Ben Woodward.

In the ‘90s, Hyacinth Hall oversaw a general renaissance at the school, establishing stability and institution, securing accreditation for Hillel from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and beginning a programme of physical expansion, including a 25-metre pool. Under her, Hillel joined the formal fraternity of international schools. Sheila Purdum transformed the high school, overseeing the introduction of the Cambridge IGCSE range of subjects to grades 10 and 11, and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme to grades 12 and 13. She also revitalised the arts and theatre programmes at Hillel.

Peggy Bleyberg-Shor’s tenure from 2008-2014 happened while educational theory was changing worldwide, and under her leadership Hillel increased attention to ‘learning differences’ and the spectrum of ways children learn outside testing regimes. Simultaneously, her husband, Derek, created a highly professional college counselling office, ensuring that students’ hard work were converted into university admissions and bursaries.

Nicholas Hazell implemented and professionalised systems to the world standard, and instituted high-level data measurement across the school, as well as establishing the senior management team that focuses on academic matters. A new mission statement was developed after school-wide consultation – the school ought to ‘inspire well-rounded, problem-solving, lifelong learners and confident global citizens prepared to change the world’. Hazell helped the school introduce the International Middle Years Curriculum to grades seven to nine.

Board chairs were instrumental in providing a strategic vision, leadership, governance practices in keeping with the highest international standards, and providing general guidance to the administration. Joseph Matalon initiated the board forum, where the finances and plans for the school are presented to staff and parents. Under Tony Lindo and David Henriques, the school attained international accreditation and initiated a wave of physical expansion that crested under Matalon’s leadership.

The PTA has always been an invaluable source of fundraising, inventiveness, and fun. Tracy Melhado-Matalon spearheaded projects to remake the high-school library, expand the prep-school playground, build the prep-school entrance structure and create a prep-school information technology (IT) centre. Alums Jackie Lechler and Michelle Mayne stepped in to contribute the dramatic prep school entrance structure.

Melhado-Matalon brought passion and hard work to various administration roles, including powering the admissions and scholarship funding of the IB programme, fundraising for the David Henriques sixthform building and the Tony Lindo IT/drama centre, upgrading the physical plant, and generally making the PTA the vital body that it is today.

Hillel students are currently offered about US$2 million in university scholarships annually and matriculate everywhere, from

Cambridge to McGill, to UWI, to Amherst, to Duke, to SCAD and the University of Chicago, from Edinburgh to Maastricht, to Princeton – showing the diversity of interests, origins, and destinations of the student body.

Alumni are found everywhere, from department chair’s offices at Ivy League universities to the C-suites of the largest Jamaican companies, to recording studios and artists’ lofts, to a range of entrepreneurial ventures.

Hillel now educates over 700 students, from over 40 countries. It has received accreditations from Advance Ed to SACSCASI, and boasts a wide-ranging educational programme, including Cambridge’s IGCSE, the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme and courses, the International Middle Years Curriculum for grades seven to nine, and the New Standard Curriculum for grades four to six. Community service is required, and students work with, and donate about $1 million annually to, a range of causes anywhere: from Jacob’s Ladder to Ensom City Basic School, to soup kitchens, to hurricane relief, and individual radiation therapy and liver transplants.

And now, on to its best years yet.