Fully Integrated

We offer an integrated and progressive social justice curriculum beginning in Kindergarten and continuing through Grade 8. Our program creates opportunities for critical thinking, self-awareness, self-reflection, personal growth, and empowerment.

Our Program

We introduce real-life, present-day issues that help students gain a deeper understanding of situations and societal trends at the local, national, and global level. At an early age, our students begin to build a foundation for advocacy and awareness by engaging in dialogues in a safe space, reading thought-proving texts, and hearing from guest speakers who offer different perspectives.

Our work with each grade is thoughtful, deliberate, relevant, developmentally appropriate, presented within a spiral curriculum, and always based on Jewish text. We help students derive meaning from texts which were written years ago by examining them critically to find relevance to their lives today.

Creating Enduring Understandings

Units correspond to important moments in the calendar, from MLK Jr. Day to Passover. Each unit has core texts, essential questions, and enduring understandings. For example, in Grade 3, students will learn stories of immigration to the Lower East Side. Essential questions will include: Why are workers’ rights a social justice Issue? Why is immigration a social justice issue? They will read literature and stories including The Blessing Cup by Patricia Polacco and Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser.

Right now, students across the school are learning empathy, problem-solving, and perspective-taking. 

• Kindergartners read ‘Let’s Talk About Race’ by Julius Lester as a part of the school-wide ‘Rashi Reads’ program. Kindergartners discussed how to get to know someone by learning all of the parts of their story, including a person’s race.
• Grade 2 students learned about a Tzedakah Hero named April DiDonna who works at a drive-through and was on a mission to tell each customer after they ordered that they were loved, that they mattered, and that they were cared about. Students were inspired by Ms. DiDonna and wrote in the style and spirit of her to uplift people’s spirits at school.
• Middle School students are working together in ‘house meetings’ to select issue areas to teach the younger grades about as a part of Tamchui.

The Suzanne and Bernard Pucker Tamchui Program

The Tamchui Program teaches and inspires Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, by honoring nonprofit organizations. With its own curriculum and dedicated learning days, Tamchui introduces all Rashi students to organizational leadership while encouraging them to think deeply about our world’s most pressing social issues. While our topics differ every year (students get to select them themselves!), structured research and conversations with teachers and experts about what to advocate for—and truly help those in need—is at the heart of the program.

Tamchui empowers our Middle School students to be teacher-leaders: after collectively selecting the issues that are most meaningful to them, they go on to engage the younger grades at Rashi with exciting, thoughtful lessons. In 2025, Students & Schools acted as our central theme. Our Grades 6, 7, and 8 decided to focus on Teen Mental Health, Food Insecurity, and Educational Access & Equity, specifically.

In partnership with Rashi teachers, as well as national and international non-profit representatives, Tamchui is a tradition and hallmark of our school. Not only does this annual program reflect the real-time cares and concerns of our student community, but it also fosters meaningful intra-grade relationships between kids across our Lower and Middle School. Tamchui creates educated, compassionate changemakers, opening students’ eyes to what is possible, widening their world, increasing their imagination and understanding of what is possible.