The Leffell School offers excellence in education in a vibrant, nurturing community environment that prepares the next generation of leaders to live thoughtful, values-based Jewish lives in the ever-evolving modern world.
The Leffell School is an independent school with two campus locations in Westchester, that is deeply committed to socioeconomic diversity and to meeting the needs of students with a wide range of learning styles. And they are a Jewish day school that is anchored in traditional Jewish observance, culture, text, and language, while embracing a broad spectrum of Jewish ideologies and promoting full immersion in the modern world.
The school is has a warm and caring environment where students are invited to think creatively and analytically from the day they walk into their kindergarten classroom. The dual curriculum enables students to think critically in two languages and provides them with a strong foundation in both secular and Judaic studies. From academic classes to holiday celebrations, to experiential learning and nurturing of body and soul, students gain a breadth and depth of knowledge and are infused with a strong sense of pride as they explore their Jewish and American heritage.
The Leffell School Academics
Lower School
The Lower School provides an ideal setting for students to develop as individuals with a lifelong passion for learning. We strive to maintain a warm and nurturing learning environment, while providing each child with a challenging, well-supported instructional program infused with Jewish values. A strong home-school partnership is vital to each child’s development and we encourage parent collaboration in all that we do.
Middle School
The Middle School experience features increased academic choice and independence within a nurturing structure of personalized support. Our program gives students the foundations to grow in their skills and self-confidence, learning to balance demands in academic, social, and emotional realms and to successfully meet the demanding challenges of High School and beyond. Through the lens of Jewish values, we encourage our students to be good citizens and advocates — engaged in the world around them and ever mindful of the experiences and needs of others.
High School
The Leffell High School offers a structured yet flexible, integrated, concept-oriented curriculum. Our secular and Judaic academics are rigorous, and they are supported and enhanced by our values and ethics, our vibrant communal life outside the classroom, and the strong and lasting connections that are formed between students and staff throughout the high school years. All these components provide our students with the courage and confidence to self-advocate, persuade, and present their ideas and opinions in cogent and compelling ways as they prepare for college and beyond.
The Leffell school offers a remarkable array of academic options. Beyond the core disciplines, our course catalogue highlights an ever-expanding list of elective classes in such areas as engineering and entrepreneurship, computer science, visual and performing arts, world languages, and physical education. And our partnership with the Virtual High School provides our students with access to hundreds of online course options.
High School is the time of life when students solidify the personal identities that will characterize them in their adult lives. In our classrooms, students are expected to define and articulate their own perspectives on the critical issues of our time, while being open to learning from viewpoints beyond their own. Judaic Studies courses in particular are built around this critical life skill of defining one’s own set of core ideologies while building community with others who may think differently.
No two students at Leffell High School share the same academic schedule. Many students are drawn to our intensive honors courses, in such areas as the sciences, mathematics, and Judaic Studies. Our double-accelerated calculus program, for example, enables students to take the college-level Advanced Placement exam at the end of 11th grade. We also offer a rich network of support that prepare learners with a variety of academic needs to thrive. Most importantly, we are a single academic community, ensuring that the schedule provides opportunities for all students to learn with and from one another.
The culminating experience of a Leffell School education is the transformative Lev v’Nefesh trip to Poland and Israel. Twelfth-grade students spend eight weeks walking in the footsteps of Jewish history, getting a taste of independent living, and learning from extraordinary guides and madrichim (counselors). Upon their return, under the guidance of a faculty member, seniors participate in either a student-designed capstone project or in an internship which provides them with work experience in an industry or field of their choosing.