ON THE GROUND WITH ICEI
Dear Friends,
As the lengthy war with Hamas continues, ICEI’s team provides day-to-day guidance and encouragement to help each of our 53 school communities keep focus and promote meaningful instruction. We continue to help arrange for psychological and other support services for students and teachers in need and help our Jewish and Arab school leaders and their faculties navigate the diverse tensions and challenges of this most difficult year.
In this newsletter, you will find a case study about one unique school ICEI is serving in Ramle, as part of our “It’s Elementary!” program. We take much pride both in this and all our schools’ outcomes and collaborative spirit.
We are also excited to share with you our Kindergarten (Ganim) pilot in the town of Bnei Ayish along with meaningful recent events, like ICEI’s nationwide Principals Forum, which provided a supportive platform for reflection and exploration of innovative ways to approach the principals’ leadership challenges.
I would like to wish all our friends, partners, and colleagues a blessed Ramadan, a happy Easter, a joyful Purim, and a peaceful spring for everyone living in the region.
Don Futterman,
Executive Director, ICEI
Ideas and Encouragement at The Principals’ Forum
Our Principals’ Forums are a great way for leaders at ICEI schools to share their experiences, get support from their peers, and learn from experts, like our partners at Avney Rosha – the Israel Institute for School Leadership. February’s Principals’ Forum, with nearly 50 participating principals and assistant principals, plus ICEI staff, was particularly special, as our schools have faced such a challenging year and ICEI has expanded to 24 new schools in the Tamkin, Meisharim, and Gefen frameworks.
Through lively discussion groups and hands-on workshops facilitated by our colleagues from Avney Rosha, participants learned about new strategies for educational leadership in times of crisis.
It was also an opportunity for us to hear what ICEI has meant to our principals:
“ICEI has supported both me and my staff personally and professionally throughout this entire period. It has been the rock I could lean on so that I could be a rock for my team, and all of us here are privileged to be a part of the ICEI community.” – Sigal Yashar, Principal of Dekel Elementary School, Ashkelon.
We are honored to support our partner educators during this difficult time.
School Case Study:
Maanit Elementary School, Ramle
The Support to Weather the Storms
“Our school is a microcosm of the nation,” says Sarah (Sissy) David, principal of the Maanit school in Ramle. “And here, in our little slice of Eden, we’re showing the students how we can overcome obstacles by respecting each other. Respect is not just a value, it’s an integral part of our daily routine.”
Between school closures, the pandemic, and wars, the Maanit elementary school in Ramle has been through a lot in the last few years. Throughout it all, the Maanit school has used the resources provided by ICEI to make sure every student continues to thrive, no matter the challenges.
“When there’s a safety net already in place, led by the ICEI Literacy Coach, it lets the teachers do their jobs better, even during difficult times,” says David. “They have the principles, the plan, the support network, and the confidence that comes from knowing they’re not alone.”
Meet the Maanit Elementary School
Ramle is one of Israel’s eight mixed Jewish-Arab cities. While many of the Arab students in town attend private schools or Arab public schools, some families have chosen to send their children to Jewish public schools like Maanit, for convenience or to ensure their children grow up speaking Hebrew. This trend only grew stronger after disturbances shook the city in 2021.
Adding to the diversity of Ramle’s schools have been waves of immigrants, most recently from Peru, Columbia, and other parts of South America.
The Challenges that Come with Diversity
“In other places, you might have two or three different reading levels in a class. Here, you have almost as many as you have kids.” David explains. This can include students who have been hearing some Hebrew all their lives but have never learned the alphabet, while others can already read comfortably in their first language but don’t speak a word of Hebrew. As a teacher, the language barrier alone can present an overwhelming challenge.”
For the Maanit staff, the emotional aspects can be just as difficult. Jewish students who were visiting family in the Gaza Envelope kibbutzim on October 7th share a classroom with Arab students worried about relatives in Gaza. Jewish, Muslim, and Christian staff work together to sensitively navigate these situations, while also dealing with the logistical chaos and personal fears triggered by this and other security incidents.
A Breath of Fresh Air From ICEI
ICEI has been working with Maanit for six years. “At the time, the school had gone through a crisis, and we needed new energy,” says David. “These last years have really challenged us, and I feel very lucky we had ICEI to lean on.”
After October 7th and during the war in Gaza, as during COVID closures, ICEI responded to emergency needs— providing teaching hours for acceleration modules to close reading gaps for the most recent immigrants and sourcing laptops for kids who didn’t have computers, then linking them into ICEI’s LightSail on-line digital reading and teaching platform. ICEI Principal Mentor Mira Pinchas and ICEI Pedagogical Supervisor Meyrav Rotem have been anchors in supporting the principal, Literacy Coach Galit Moshe, and the school faculty – emotionally, pedagogically, and materially.
With this assistance, Maanit was able to hold on to past gains. The school has racked up the second-highest number of student reading hours on the LightSail platform out of the 18 ICEI schools in the program.
When the ground is shaking, having a strong shoulder to lean on is sometimes all that keeps you standing tall. For Maanit, ICEI has been that support.
Government Partners Visit Tamkin Joint Venture Schools
ICEI was honored to host our partners from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry for Social Equality, and the Haifa, Northern, and Tel Aviv Regions of the Ministry of Education on visits to our Tamkin Joint Venture schools in Umm al-Fahm, Jadeidi-Makr, and Jaffa over the past month. Special thanks to Hana Laloush, Director of the Department of Elementary Education; Shirin Natour Hafi, Director of the Department of Arab Education; Dr. Hussam Diab, Senior Superintendent of the Department of Arab Education; Hassan Ayoub, Acting Director of the Department of Arab Elementary Education; and Jinan Zoabi, National Instructor for Language Education and Tamkin Coordinator at the Department of Arab Elementary Education; without whom the Joint Venture would not have been possible.
Introducing the Bnei Ayish Kindergarten Pilot Program
Over the last six years, ICEI’s Springboard to Success program has been making waves in this small town near Ashdod. The triumphant success convinced the municipality to expand the program from 1st and 2nd grade all the way through 6th, and two years ago, the Education Department of the Bnei Ayish Local Council challenged ICEI to develop a new program in uncharted territory: kindergartens.
“Before we started with ICEI, Bnei Ayish’s literacy rates were in the red. Now they’re in the top 10%,” explains Inda Flint, the director of the Ir B’Shinui (Changing City) program that is working with the Bnei Ayish municipality to improve educational infrastructures, in partnership with ICEI. “Here, kids are coming into preschool with no Hebrew, from homes where parents don’t necessarily read to their kids regularly. So if teachers for the youngest kids can actively draw connections between language, narrative, and literacy, we believe their students will have a better foundation for learning to read and loving reading.”
Since the pilot began last year, the ICEI staff and literacy coaches in the Bnei Ayish schools have been working hand-in-hand with the kindergarten teachers to tailor a program for the unique needs of younger kids, building the program that provides practical techniques for educators. The kindergarten students are encouraged to interact more directly with stories and to process them together with their peers and teachers. By the time they get to school, the students will already have the mindset they need to begin reading, will be familiar with the ICEI methodologies they’ll use to advance their literacy skills, and will even have had a chance to visit and get comfortable with their new classrooms.
“I see the difference between kids who’ve had the program and the kids who didn’t,” said Sagit, who has been teaching for 28 years and now teaches first grade in Bnei Ayish’s Efrati school. “Despite the war, my kids have learned to read so fast. And more, they’ve learned to talk to each other and listen to others! It’s raised the whole level of classroom dialogue.”
ICEI looks forward to developing our pilot for kindergarten classes and teachers, preparing students for the crucial transition to first grade.
