Meet Andrea Katzman!
Andrea is excited to return to JCDSRI for her sixteenth year, and her fifth as Head of School. Andrea earned both her BA and MA from the University of Kansas and immediately after finishing graduate school, lived in Jerusalem for a year where she coordinated a Jewish feminist project and directed an English Language learning program for Ethiopian immigrants.
In 1999, Andrea and her family moved to Providence and a few years later, she began teaching Pre-K at JCDSRI. Andrea has also served as a private educational consultant and taught in the Education Department of Rhode Island College and in the Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education at Hebrew College. In 2009-10, Andrea and her family lived in Rishon LeZion, Israel, during which time she co-wrote and published her first book, Purple Leaves, Red Cherries: Short Stories on Motherhood.
Andrea is grateful to be Head of School at JCDSRI and – together with her students and colleagues at JCDSRI – spends her days building community and practicing kavod (respect), hesed (kindness), and shalom (peace). She has an extensive snow-globe collection and regularly perpetrates acts of “guerilla gardening”. Andrea and her husband, Steve Jacobson, have two college-age daughters, both of whom are proud graduates of JCDSRI!