Our Stories

Lisa Schopf

Faculty and Staff


Highlights from the Grade 8 Israel Trip

June 20, 2025 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

From May 1-11, Grade 8 students completed their capstone trip to Israel. Their days were action packed, with opportunities for meaningful learning and reflection in nature, museums and monuments, neighborhoods and towns, cultural sites, archaeological digs, and more. Each student connected with the content of this trip in their own way, and the group received […]


Immersive Learning Week 2023

December 20, 2023 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

During the last week of the calendar year, the Middle School suspends typical classes to allow students and teachers to take a deep dive in a particular content area during Immersive Learning Week. This year’s offerings allowed students to stretch themselves academically, artistically, physically, and spiritually as they traveled in small groups throughout the DC […]


The Places We Carry

July 8, 2022 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

The following speech was delivered by Middle School Director Lisa Schopf at the class of 2022 graduation ceremony. On our last day in Israel together, I spoke to you about how we can carry places we have been inside of us- retaining the insights, feelings, and perspectives we gained through our experiences in those spaces. […]

  • #DCIndependentSchool
  • #DCJewishMiddleSchool
  • #DCPrivateSchool
  • #JewishDaySchool
  • #ThisIsWhy
  • Israel

“Tel” Milton: The Memories and Artifacts that Shape Identity

July 8, 2022 by Arielle Derby (Faculty and Staff) Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff) Melissa Davis (Faculty and Staff)

The following remarks were shared at Milton’s Toast to the Graduates of the class of 2022 by Middle School Director Lisa Schopf, Elementary School Director Arielle Derby, and Early Childhood Education Director Melissa Davis. When we were in Israel we visited tels, mounds of earth that held within them layer upon layer of different civilizations, […]

  • #Graduation
  • #MiltonExperience
  • #MiltonMoments
  • #ToastToTheGraduates

Uncoverage: Empowering Students to Become Part of History

November 4, 2021 by Deborah Skolnick-Einhorn (Faculty and Staff) Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

This article was published in HaYidion November 2021. As a doctoral student at Brandeis, Deborah and her classmates were encouraged to design “readings courses” around topics of interest that weren’t otherwise available in the curriculum. As is sometimes the case, the one willing to do the legwork gets to chart the course, and so Deborah […]

  • #DCIndependentSchool
  • #DCPrivateSchool
  • #JewishDaySchool
  • #MiltonAdvantage
  • #MiltonGottesman
  • #ThisIsWhy
  • In the News
  • Project Based Learning

Middle School Scholars Forum: Study of Civil Rights

October 21, 2021 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

Seventh graders delved into the inspiring, evocative words of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on their field trip to DC memorials this week. Students selected passages from The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, and the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. that are inscribed on the walls and memorials. They reflected […]

  • #DCIndependentSchool
  • #DCJewishMiddleSchool
  • #DCPrivateSchool
  • #JewishDaySchool
  • #MiltonAdvantage
  • #MiltonGottesman
  • #ThisIsWhy
  • Project Based Learning
  • Tikkun Olam
  • Washington D.C.

Lisa Schopf’s Remarks to the Graduates

June 22, 2021 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

This is a moment filled with nostalgia, appreciation, reflection, celebration, accomplishment, and anticipation for all that is yet to come. For me, it is also a moment in which I am feeling a sense of urgency as I want to be sure to tell you all I want you to know and hold onto before […]

  • #DCIndependentSchool
  • #DCJewishMiddleSchool
  • #DCPrivateSchool
  • #JewishDaySchool
  • #MiltonExperience
  • #MiltonGottesman

Coming Together; Becoming Whole: The 8th Grade Capstone Trip

May 27, 2021 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

One of the surprises of school life in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the creation of new connections and new opportunities for finding joy across reimagined and redefined horizons – even as we navigated instances of limited or lost opportunity. During Milton’s recent capstone graduation trip, our eighth grade students and their […]

  • #DCIndependentSchool
  • #DCJewishMiddleSchool
  • #DCPrivateSchool
  • #JewishDaySchool
  • #MiddleSchool
  • #MiltonExperience
  • #MiltonGottesman
  • #MiltonMoments
  • #ThisIsWhy

Making Jewish Learning Meaningful

March 16, 2021 by Lisa Schopf (Faculty and Staff)

Middle School Director Lisa Schopf published an article in The Lookstein Center’s Jewish Educational Leadership journal about making Jewish learning meaningful. Her article explores the essential role of meaning-making in the learning process and examines multiple pathways that educators can use as a framework of their lessons. In her piece, Lisa reflects: “In finding the meaning, […]

  • #DCIndependentSchool
  • #DCPrivateSchool
  • #JewishDaySchool
  • InTheNews