Mesivta 404 Mesivta 404: Our Story of Risk-Failure-Opportunity | Page 15

Designing our new school
We called a meeting with the boys before announcing that we would be finding a different alternative
for next year. We hoped at least to document what had gone wrong and to extract some learning
lessons from the experience. Before the meeting, we had decided that we would ask them if they would
want to consider forming a more formal high school under the official auspices of Lamplighters, but were
pretty convinced that we all would decide to pass.
The room was packed. The boys, a handful of educators who had been involved with the program, 404
parents, Lamplighters board members and guests came together. We started by listing everything we
had learned over the year and what we might advise others about starting a program such as 404. At
some point, one of the boys suggested we keep a “wish list” for our new school. NEW SCHOOL???
Wait...we thought we were closing!
We casually asked the boys whether they thought we could start a successful program out of the ashes
of 404. It was unanimously “yes.”
We shifted our work to start the planning. What would be our vision? Structure? What resources
would we need? How would the boy’s attitudes and behaviors need to change? Lamplighters Mesivta
had been born. The hard work had just begun.