The bilingual in Haifa finally has a home: "We've come a long way, but it was worth it!"

(lives here with the students) - "This is our Haifa, the real Haifa", so parents excitedly said to the students of the bilingual education in Haifa. After years of struggle, this week their children were allowed to enter their own school.

The bilingual students in Haifa entered their own place for the first time

For years they acted with determination, contacted every relevant party, wrote, spoke, demonstrated and above all did not give up, the struggle of parents at the bilingual school in Haifa bore fruit, when at the beginning of the week (Sun. 28/1/24) the students entered the school's independent building, which is intended for the first time exclusively for them. The building, which is located in Kiryat Eliezer, was previously used by the "Mazor" school, and now, as mentioned, after the house moved to temporary locations and was a guest at other schools, the building will be used exclusively by the bilingual students.

Alongside the elementary school in the former Mazor school building, there will also be municipal compulsory kindergartens of the bilingual track. Until this week, the elementary school was hosted, as it has been for the past 3 years, at the Hofit school in the Shaar Aliya neighborhood. Until now, there were private gardens of the Yad Yad community in Hadar, and last September the municipality opened two municipal compulsory gardens. The compulsory kindergartens operated until now in a temporary building on Derech Hayam street and now they have moved to operate next to the school in Kiryat Eliezer in the same building.

Now there is a bilingual system of over 300 students studying in nurseries and preschools in Hadar, municipal compulsory kindergartens and an urban elementary school in Kiryat Eliezer and middle school as a separate track within the six-year urban school XNUMX in Kiryat Eliezer. The pedagogical approach of the bilingual school includes two teachers for each class, each of whom speaks her native language. The school places a main emphasis on project-based learning, modular learning in small groups and the development of close relationships between the staff and the students.

"We've come a long way, but it was worth it"

"The entrance of the girls and boys to school at the beginning of the week, their smiles and the sense of pride that they and we are partners in an unprecedented and important act, precisely and especially against the background of the period, were a particularly moving sight," says Dr. Mirav Ben-Non from the leadership of the Hori community Hand in hand Haifa.

"We have come a very long way, there were challenging moments and not a few difficulties, but there is nothing like this feeling, upon entering school, to prove that everything was worth it. We thank the Haifa municipality and the mayor, as well as the professional teams, who knew how to implement this move, simply because this is the real Haifa in which we chose to raise our children - a Haifa that belongs to all its residents, that allows everyone to have their own identity and connects through familiarity, beautiful neighbors and an education system where everyone speaks to one another With the other both when good and when hard, both when there are disagreements and when we agree."

"There is always a horizon and hope"

Adwa Shai, an activist in the Yad Yad parents' community in Haifa, also told how much the parents and children had been waiting to move to their own school: "From our point of view, this is a historic day, which shows that determination and faith in the path lead to results and prove that there is always a horizon and hope to move towards them. As Haifaites and Haifaites, we think that the path The correct one that suits life in our special city, includes educating our children to get to know each other, to dialogue and to establish relationships of trust. These are the concepts that have dictated our path as a community for the past twelve years, and of course the current move would not have been possible without the municipality and its leader, who believed in and implemented the move Together with its people, with the professional staff of the Municipal Education Director and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

"The road was neither short nor easy, but it paid off, and we were privileged to arrive at this exciting day, of the inauguration of an independent Jewish-Arab bilingual school building in Haifa. We look at him with gratitude, but for us this is not the end of the road yet, we will continue to do our best to expand and stabilize the bilingual education system at its various stages."