"We need to strengthen common education on days like this, not weaken it" • Protest in front of Haifa Municipality

Haifa's bilingual community demonstrated against the closing of a compulsory kindergarten

(live here in education) - Dozens of parents from the 'Yad Bid' community came to demonstrate in front of the city hall last night (Tuesday, 6/7/024) against the intention to close one of the two compulsory kindergartens that were supposed to open in September. According to the parents, even though there are enough people enrolled in both kindergartens, the municipality refuses to open a second kindergarten, claiming that the ratio between the Jewish and Arab children in these kindergartens is 40:60 and not 50:50. The parents claim that this is a meaningless difference.

The 'Yad Bid' community in Haifa was established 13 years ago by the initiative of Jewish and Arab parents who aspired to educate their children together. The parents established a bilingual kindergarten in collaboration with the Yad Bid association, which very quickly succeeded in reaching a high level of demand with long waiting lists, and as of today there are 5 private kindergartens from the age of one to the age of 5, two municipal compulsory kindergartens, an urban bilingual elementary school and a continuation track Bilingual for high school in the city school A. Today, 380 students study in the entire system in Haifa (145 in kindergartens, 180 in elementary and another 50 in middle school).

"The municipality needs to strengthen us, especially on days like this"

The co-chairman of the Yad Yad community in Haifa, Sachar Younes, does not understand how during a war the municipality does not do all it can to support the community: "The Haifa municipality decided to cancel one of the two compulsory bilingual kindergarten classes that were supposed to open at the beginning of the school year, and this Although there is a great demand for bilingual education in the city, from Arabs and Jews. The municipality chooses to reduce the common education in Haifa instead of expanding it.

The reasoning of the municipality is this: they refuse to open 2 classes because the ratio in them will be 60:40 in favor of the Arabs and not exactly 50:50. It's a tiny and really insignificant difference. When so many Haifaites, Jews and Arabs, choose to send their children to a common kindergarten in the middle of a war - the Haifa municipality should strengthen them, and not close kindergarten to them with bureaucratic arguments. That's why dozens of families from the bilingual community of Haifa arrived, to make our voices heard in front of the city hall in favor of a Jewish-Arab partnership and bilingualism in the city."

"The most Haifai there is"

Younes appealed to Mayor Yona Yahav to stop the decision: "Haifa is the capital of Israel's Jewish-Arab partnership. You are our mayor, Arabs and Jews, and you have always supported Jewish-Arab partnership and joint education for Haifa people who are interested in it. We call on you to be the leader you are, to stop this decision and to announce that 2 bilingual kindergarten classes will be opened in the city. We trust you to promote the common life in our city and not harm it.

According to the parents, in the school year that ended, the municipality opened two municipal kindergartens, with over 20 children in each of them (44 children in total).

This year, during the registration period, despite the war and even though the kindergartens moved to their home during the registration period and parents could not even check where they were enrolling their children, despite all this, enough children were registered to open two kindergartens. Nevertheless, the municipality requests to close one of the kindergartens, probably as a solution to the lack of space for the additional class that will be in the next school year."

"It's always been that way"

"This year there were 6 classrooms in the school, and in the coming school year 7 classrooms will be opened, therefore there is no space for one of the classrooms, something that the municipality has known for over a year and a half, since it was decided to move us to the Mazor school building. The way the municipality wants to present, as if there is a quantity children for only one kindergarten, is in presenting the demand for a balance of 50:50 Jews and Arabs, even though throughout the years a ratio of up to 60:40 was accepted, as is accepted in the bilingual schools throughout the country, and as determined by the professional committee of the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for the schools The bilingual".

"false claim"

"We have been in the municipal system for 7 years, and throughout that time the balance is 40:60. Therefore, we claim that the decision to insist on a ratio of 50:50 this year, is irrelevant and comes to resolve the fact that for a year and a half the municipality did not take care of a physical solution for the seventh grade, and every This year there will be more and more classes. We know that there are Arab families who received a negative answer to the request to register for the bilingual kindergartens, so the claim that only 35 children were registered is incorrect."

"Registration for kindergartens ended on January 27"

The Haifa Municipality gave a response, Because registration for kindergartens ended throughout the country according to the rules of the Ministry of Education on January 27. "35 children were enrolled in the bilingual kindergarten in Haifa, of which 51% are from the Jewish community and 49% from the Arab community. The Ministry of Education does not allow the opening of additional kindergartens at this time, and in any case there are no children waiting to be registered for kindergarten according to the rules established for bilingual kindergartens, except from one company only.
The director of education in the Haifa municipality will be happy to open another bilingual kindergarten in the next school year, provided that the registration for it is done on time and according to the rules established on the subject."