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Ilana Ruskay-Kidd – 2016 Award Recipient
Ilana Ruskay-Kidd is the Founder and Head of School at The Shefa School in New York, a pluralistic Jewish day school that provides a Jewish environment for children with language-based learning challenges. Under her leadership, Shefa has grown exponentially in its short life, enrolling 24 students in grades 2 to 5 in its first academic year and surging to 80 students in grades 1 to 7 in the fall of 2016. With the founding of Shefa, Ruskay-Kidd has emerged as an advocate for Jewish day schools to more effectively recognize and support children with learning challenges. In the last year, she has convened over 150 professionals from more than 40 Jewish day schools in an effort to change the communal conversation on serving this population of students and their families.