A mother of 13, Freidy never imagined she’d pursue a college degree—let alone become one of the heads of Early Childhood Education at Bais Yaakov of Borough Park, one of the largest Jewish community schools in New York. But thanks to Touro University’s School for Lifelong Education (SLE), she turned a part-time teaching job into a leadership role that touches the lives of hundreds of young children and their families.

“I was not career-minded,” Freidy said. “My dream was to be a stay-at-home mom, like my mother. But I wanted to be the best teacher I could be, and the SLE program opened up a whole new world for me.”

A pathway designed for her life

Freidy enrolled in SLE in the 1990s, when Touro opened a branch in Borough Park, at a time when her husband was learning in kollel and finances were tight. Yet the flexibility of the SLE program—with classes just one evening a week and on Sundays—allowed her to work part-time as a teacher at Bais Yaakov of Borough Park while earning her degree.

“I had to squeeze every minute out of my schedule,” she said. “We had to be accountable and my time frame was very narrow, but I found the program very doable. I had some excellent teachers and I did learn.”

A future she never expected

After completing her bachelor’s degree through SLE, Freidy felt compelled to further her education, and went on to earn her master’s degree in education at Fordham University. The degrees, she said, gave her the credentials and confidence to step into a directorship role at Bais Yaakov.

“Without that, there’s no way I would have been able to become a director,” she said. “In this role I have a broader lens in seeing children master milestones and reach success, and I get to work with more professionals, from social workers to PD (Professional Development) professionals, and use their ideas and approaches to support children and their families.”

Freidy credits her Touro coursework with directly improving her teaching and leadership skills.

“My professors stressed the need to teach students using a multi-sensory approach and creating rubrics before assigning assignments to assure that the assignment was specific and the grade was ‘authentic,’” she said. “I immediately plugged those two components into my classroom.”

Her experience also changed the way her children saw their own futures: All six of her daughters went into education.

“One is a director now, another was offered a directorship, and one of them works under me as a preschool teacher,” she said. “They all saw what was possible.”

Changing the culture, and the classroom

Freidy credits Touro with helping shift the mindset in Borough Park around higher education.

“The attitude changed. Touro opened a new pathway for religious Jews.”

Her journey from teaching fifth grade and Pre-K to becoming a leader of her school wasn’t part of the original plan, but it’s made a huge, and unexpected, difference in her life.

“This was never what I envisioned,” Freidy said. “But SLE gave me the tools, the structure, and the opportunity to go further than I ever thought I could.”