Ten years later, the school has settled into more spacious digs on 20 acres near Brandeis University and boasts an enrollment of more than 300.
For its 10th anniversary, Gann, also known as the New Jewish High School of Greater Boston, will celebrate with a symposium and town meeting next Wednesday.
Co-sponsored by Brandeis' Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, the event will feature leaders of philanthropic foundations, community organizations, Jewish education and business.
Brandeis has supported the school since Gann opened. Brandeis students use Gann for certain programs, such as a new master of arts in teaching program to train teachers of the Bible.
"I think the possibilities for really developing a fruitful relationship that involves exchanges, collaborative research, and professional development is very exciting," said Sharon Feiman-Nemser, director of the Mandel Center and Mandel professor of Jewish Education at Brandeis.
Feiman-Nemser also acknowledged Gann's progress from when it began its mission in its rented facility "to being a large thriving day high school with a beautiful new campus."
The campus includes several athletic facilities, a music area with soundproofed rooms, and each classroom has high tech features, such as Smart Boards, electronic and interactive blackboards.
A percentage of Gann juniors are allowed to participate in a three-month program each year, where they spend an extensive amount of time in Israel. The school has had appearances by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, and has featured a creative writing course taught by screenplay writer David Mamet.
"We've had people from all walks of life and corners of the globe come, so it's been an exciting place in terms of bring up top notch people to high school kids," Headmaster Rabbi Daniel Lehmann said.
Gann is also a model across the country, and in some other nations, for its cutting edge innovative Jewish high school education, Lehmann said.
Lehmann, who will be retiring in May, attributes much of the school's growth over the last decade to moving from downtown to the campus on Forest Street.
"I don't think we could have grown as we have without being able to offer people facilities that are competitive," he said.
Still, Lehmann said at the time, there was reluctance to move from the building, which Lehmann said had a "funkier" feel to it, as the space was forcing people to interact closely with each other.
"There was a lot of concern among students and faculty that we were going to lose a lot of the intimacy and edgy feeling of our school," he said.
Lehmann said the move was good for the school in the long run.
"We definitely went from being a start-up kind of operation to being something that was established and had a sense of its own dignity and destiny when we moved onto this campus," he said, "and it feels good."
Matt Perkins can be reached at 781-398-8009 or at mperkins@cnc.com.
