Our Stories

This year, we are fortunate that Beth Tritter has assumed the role of President of MILTON’s Board of Trustees. Beth has been on the board since 2023 and served as its Secretary for the 2024-25 school year. Beth is also a former MILTON parent and a founding leader at DC Minyan. Below, we ask her about her history with MILTON, her path to becoming president, what she wants our community to know about the board, and more.

Tell us about your connection to MILTON. How–and why–did you first become involved with our school?  

My family and I joined the MILTON community in 2008, when my older daughter, Anna, entered Kindergarten. My older son, Emmett, started in pre-K the next year, followed by twins Gideon and Eleanor in 2015.  I was fortunate enough to attend day school growing up in Connecticut, and my husband, Jeremy, and I were eager for our children to have a strong connection to their Jewish heritage and a facility with Jewish liturgy and learning and the Hebrew language. We wanted them to feel comfortable and welcome in Jewish spaces and to feel a sense of ownership over their Jewish identities.  

Why did you become involved with the Board of Trustees? Can you tell us about your path to becoming president?

I joined the Board of Trustees in 2023 as a community board member – the twins had graduated in 2022 so we had completed that part of our family’s MILTON journey.  I was honored to be approached, and grateful when my nomination was approved; I saw it as a perfect way to pay forward all of the gifts that a MILTON education has given our family, and a nice way to represent the downtown and DC Minyan elements of the MILTON community. I started as President over the summer, taking over from Pete Federowicz, who has been as fantastic a mentor as he is a leader.  

Could you share a little about your outside professional background? How are you bringing that to this role?

I’ve spent my career in and outside of government. Inside, I’ve worked on Capitol Hill  — for a wonderful Member of Congress named Nita Lowey (z’l), and in two different Federal agencies, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and USAID, primarily on global development and public health. Now, I help foundations, non-profits, and mission-oriented companies create strategies to maximize the good they can do in the world, crowd in partners to collaborate, and manage risk and crises.  I bring all of these experiences to my role on MILTON’s board – thinking ambitiously about what we can achieve together, being a good listener, a problem solver, and keeping the community at the center, always.  

What do you think the broader MILTON community should know about what you do as a member of the board?

Primarily that it’s not so mysterious!  Our role is to support the innovative and important work that Deborah and her team do each day and to be responsible stewards for MILTON, helping to ensure that the school is on firm financial footing, that our goals are clear, and that MILTON can continue to provide a world-class Jewish education to as many children as possible in and around DC well into the future.  We provide guidance and oversight, and we’re a sounding board, bringing all of our individual experiences to the table to help the professional team succeed.  I’m always eager to connect with more people in the MILTON community, so please reach out if you’d like to chat. 

Could you share a favorite memory from your time with MILTON?

My youngest kids’ 8th-grade graduation (see the picture above) was an exciting moment.  They were in 6th grade when COVID hit, and Deborah and the team had done such a stellar job of building and maintaining cohesion among the class during a rough period, making the kids feel connected to their peers and supported in a way I never could have imagined.  Their class was a special group, and it was wonderful to see them reach this milestone together. 

If you could invite 3 people, living or dead, to your Shabbat dinner, who would you choose?

First, it would be Shabbat lunch – dinner is great, but Shabbat lunch is the centerpiece of the week for me and, hands down, my favorite meal!  And nothing is better than having all four kids at home for a nice, relaxed Shabbat lunch feast, with too much dessert, lots of friends popping in and out, and lively conversation.