As we shared with our community last week, thanks to a generous grant from The Zalik Foundation Fund, and the visionary support on the part of its principals, David and Helen Zalik, The Weber School will establish the Daniel Zalik Academy housed in an MIT-inspired Fab Lab. Focusing on the disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Design, The Zalik Academy will serve students at The Weber School as well as Jewish students across Atlanta.

Last November, students in Laura Bowers, Pablo Colombini, Olivia Rocamora, and Amy Saunders' Spanish classes began an ongoing relationship with Los Niños Primero (Kids First), by furnishing a classroom space for the underserved Latino pre-school children at the school. Now, students in the Spokes and Bandaids English elective are embarking on the final phase of the preschool classroom buildout -- painting a meaningful and engaging mural on the classroom wall.

Spokes and Bandaids is a course designed to explore and empathize with the immigrant/refugee crisis in the world, especially the Hispanic immigration experience in the United States. This course, though political in nature, seeks more to remind students of their Jewish responsibility for the refugee (because we were once refugees) than it does to debate policy.