In response to the Lakewood community’s great need and interest, Tree of Knowledge has begun plans to build a Learning Center in the heart of the action. TOK has begun planning a state of the art facility that is expected to be completed before the 2012 school year.

Presently, TOK acts as a service provider to many of the private schools, chadorim, girl schools, and yeshivas for the Lakewood Board of Education, providing speech therapy, social skills counseling, special education, as well as reading, math, and Kriah training. TOK has also been providing In-Home Instruction for the BOE for the past seven years.

In their new TOK Center, they plan to offer a number of additional services which compliment what is presently available from their future neighboring agencies. Psychological assessments, psycho-educational services, counseling, GED prep, Wilson Reading training, and CLEP assessments, are some of the services which TOK is preparing to provide.

TOK has licensed K-12 educational software in all subjects, through their e-Tree division, which allows students to study individually at their own pace towards graduating with a high school diploma, including early graduation.

TOK intends to offer separate hours in the proposed in-house computer lab for students to utilize this software, as well as provide teachers to supervise and assist these students in their coursework.

As part of the plans of the TOK Center, is a Conference and Training Center to accommodate their growing staff and needs. Over this past year, Tree of Knowledge has provided professional development training and courses in many areas to their staff, including a comprehensive Wilson Reading Training course this past week, by Mrs. Nechama Salfer, MA., who is a certified Wilson instructor. Mrs. Salfer has degrees in education, special education, psychology, and business and integrates these in her professional training of the TOK staff.

Another growing need in Lakewood has become the need for mentoring and counseling. The executive director of TOK, Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Salfer, Rosh Yeshivas Doresh of Miami, has developed a social skills program to be implemented in many of the Lakewood chadorim andmesivtas. The curriculum was written specifically for the needs of yeshiva bochorim and will be supervised and taught by heimishe recognized professionals. Submitted by TOK.