Meri Sirkin, Upper School Nurse

10/16/2020

When The Leffell School shifted to remote teaching and learning last March, Upper School Nurse Meri Sirkin went straight to work.

Over the next six months, while she wasn’t seeing students in her office every day, Sirkin watched webinar after webinar, learning and trying to understand how to be best prepared for when the school reopened in September.

“I felt so lucky that I was part of a team,” Sirkin said. “I wasn’t going to need to make any decisions on my own. I shared whatever information I learned with Dr. Kay, Rabbi Pell, the division principals, and the Lower School nurse. We were in this together.”

This approach aligns with Sirkin’s broader practice of nursing: there is rarely one factor that impacts a person’s health. Rather, the biological, emotional, social, communal, and spiritual aspects of our lives work together and affect each other.

“It’s my philosophy,” Sirkin said. “In this case, there is the CDC, the Department of Health, our medical advisory committee, our administration, plus our faculty, staff, students, and parent community that are all in this together. But this isn’t a new phenomenon. Before COVID-19, I always tried to work closely with everyone and felt like I was part of a larger team. I believe that each person contributes their unique perceptions depending upon their beliefs, values, and their training.”

Sirkin transitioned to being the Upper School nurse 20 years ago when The Leffell School’s second campus opened. Before that, her work involved individual, group, and family therapy, with a focus on adolescents recovering from drugs and alcohol or eating disorders.

“Working with teenagers in psychiatric nursing gave me the opportunity to mix all of my passions: working with teens, working with their families, being creative in helping teens express themselves through their artwork,” Sirkin said. “It was very rewarding to help teens tell their stories. When I started at Schechter Westchester, I needed to make a transition from working with teens who were in treatment and recovering to working with teens in a preventative way. Here, I wanted to reach teens who were not using substances and make sure they continued to stay healthy, or were able to walk away from drugs and alcohol or from situations that were potentially harmful as well as learned new ways to reduce stress in a healthy way.”

Over the last two decades, Sirkin’s work has continued to adapt to what is needed at the school. Teaching has always remained a large component, whether formally or informally. Outside of school hours, Sirkin teaches nursing students at the College of New Rochelle, Mercy College, and Westchester Community College.

“Teaching is just a part of who I am,” Sirkin said. “Teaching people health and wellness, or if they have a medical problem, then how to live with their illness or disorder. Nurses look at people not just as their medical problem, but how their problem may affect all of the other areas of their lives. Here at The Leffell School, I’ve worked as a health educator putting together a curriculum of what students needed to learn in certain grades. I started teaching health in the Middle School because those are pivotal years in reaching them and teaching how to make good decisions for themselves, especially during the bnai mitzvah years.”

Middle School Dean of Students Rabbi Joan Forchheimer highlighted the privilege of working collaboratively over the years.

“I feel like our kids get the best possible care,” Forchheimer said. “She always has time for everyone and has a way of making everyone feel like they are the most important person when they are in her office. Meri also helped create the health education curriculum. We had full confidence in what she thought our priorities should be. She worked closely with Rabbi Pell to incorporate Jewish values into health ed. She educates our community on important health issues so we can keep our students and families safe. She helps individual students and teachers with their health issues and teaches students to better understand themselves and their bodies as they mature. She is an intelligent and gifted nurse and educator and her impact on the community is far reaching.”

While Sirkin has certainly been a valuable faculty member in the school community, she has played an additional role as alumni parent to Roshana (Class of 2010), Gabriel (MS 2007), and Maia (Class of 2014). Both Roshana and Maia decided to enter careers in healthcare, which simultaneously excites and concerns their mother. Roshana is a neurosurgical physician assistant at Mount Sinai, and transitioned to the frontlines along with her fiancé Steven, treating COVID-19 patients for several months back in March. Maia completed her Master of Public Health in May, and is currently a first-year medical student at Technion—Israel Institute of Technology.

“I love that they work in healthcare and I’m very proud of them, but I honestly worry too right now because of the pandemic,” Sirkin said. “I’m frontline in a different way. My daughter was pulled from neurosurgery to do full frontline work dealing with ICU patients during the height of COVID-19. And my son Gabe is in the real estate world, which is also totally unpredictable right now.”

However, at the end of the day, Sirkin feels very fortunate that she and her children are able to pursue the work they love and continue to grow as members of the Leffell School kehilah.

“I love the fact that my children were able to learn from this community as students here,” Sirkin said. “I think they’re better people because of the values that not only my husband and I gave them, but that the school gave them; this reinforced who they are today. My husband and I often smile as we see their Jewish values come out in different ways in their daily lives. We feel very blessed and thank the community for helping to shape our children."

Back