Lisa Ridge-Kritz, Vice President and Secretary.

Lisa Ridge-Kritz recently retired as the director of the Hertz Nursery School at Temple Israel Sharon, in Sharon, Massachusetts. A 40+ year veteran to Jewish Early Childhood Education, she was the Director at Hertz Nursery School since 1988.  Currently, Lisa is involved with creating and maintaining outdoor classroom environments that include her Nursery School, building Woodland Wilderness,  and consulting on other programs. She has co-founded Second Nature Design Consulting. Lisa attended the Nature Explore Leadership institute in Nebraska City, Nebraska.  Woodland Wilderness is an accredited Nature Explore Outdoor Classroom.  She will also be working with Nature Explore to provide consulting and educational training for programs interested in outdoor classroom initiatives and integrating the “Jewish Outside” component.

Lisa  holds a Bachelor of Education degree from University of Rhode Island and a certificate in Early Childhood Education from Hebrew College. She is a founding member of the former Boston Judaic Accreditation certificate and of the Boston-Haifa Early Childhood Educators Partnership.  Additionally Lisa has taught outreach for Hebrew college Early Childhood initiatives.

Her future goals include working towards creating more nature/outdoor based programs, “Taking Jewish Outside” curriculum and providing professional development opportunities for Jewish educators.