Don’t Shut Down The Hebrew Reali School

Don’t Shut Down

The Hebrew Reali School

Don’t destroy what thousands of educators, graduates, parents and students for more than a 100 years.

Submitted by: Roni Toister and Dana Shakov

In 2014, the ministry of education issued a memorandom that limited the amount of money that a semi-private school can charge from the students parents.

In the past few years the number of semi-private schools in Israel have grown - and the most known ones (besides The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa) are the Democratic schools and schools of the Anthroposophy stream.

According to the new memorandom, the limits on the school tuition in semi-private schools are dinamic and changing from grade to grade. The school tuition is 885 shekels for 1st-4th graders, 1770 shekel for 5th-6th graders, 20120 shekels for 7th-9th graders and 2300 shekels for 10th-12th graders. This alone from the usual fees charged at each school arriving approximately to 1000 shekels per year.

The new memorandom allows semi-pivate schools to charge extra 400 shekels per student a year, to cover the costs of runing the institution during the afternoon.

At the end of the day, with the extra hours of an additional curriculum that are taken under consideratiom while calculating tuition, a parent whose child attends a semi-private school, is expected to pay 5,000 shekels per year.

The Hebrew Reali School has 4 branches and a kindergarten.

3 of the branches (Hadar - Science and Arts, MATOS - The School for Science, Nature and Environmetnt in Camel Center and Ahuza - Leadership and Communication) are made up of an Elementry School and a Junior high located in the same compound but in different buildings, one of the branches is a high school (Beit Biram).

As of today, The Hebrew Reali School has been receiving lower budgets than those public schools do from the ministry of education, the school does not receive any budgets from Haifa’s city council and a major part of ths school’s overall budget is made of the tuition that the student’s parents pay.

Due to the new restrictions The Hebrew Reali School have to cut short the amount of money it charges from the parents, therefore losing 40% off of the school’s budget, or risking losing financial aid/budgets from the ministry of education in other words losing 40% off of the school’s budget.

No matter what the school chooses - it will lose approximately 40% off of it’s budget.

There are 4,050 students at the Hebrew Reali School starting from kindergarten all the way to senior year in high school.

Therefore if the school loses 40% of it’s budget, the school won’t be able to invest in its students the same way it does now, which can cause a downfall in the amount of opportunities that the school holds for its students, the amunt of investment in each student or God forbid lead to the closing of the institute.

During 2014 The Hebrew Reali School negotiated with the Ministry of Education in order to change the memorandom and it’s catastrophic consequences to the school.

It seems that the disscusions did not yield the results hoped for, because in January 2015 The Hebrew Reali School submitted a motion against the Ministry of Education’s memorandom to the supreme court. Even Haifa’s city council supported the school’s motion and informed that the city of Haifa cannot receive all those 4,050 students that will not have a school to attend in the event of closing the school. Moreover said the council, that in order to receive all students there is a need to build at the very least 3 new schools, a process that will take no less than 5 and a half years.

The judge declined the school’s motion, claiming that there is no reason to dismiss the memorandom because the school charges way more than it is allowed.

Eventually, the school had struck a deal with the Ministry of Education and the new Minister allowing the school to remain open for one more year. The Minister boasted that he does not wish to destroy one of the few masterpieces of The Zionist project in Israel - The Hebrew Reali School.

Using this memorandom, the ministry of educatiom hopes to acheive some sort of a status que in which all the students in Israel will be equall - meaning all the students will be eligible to the same privileges and opportunities.

The ministry wants to abolish the gap beteen the differen layers of the population, but instead of helping those who are not as good as others, the ministry rouins the high levels and high qualities of good schools such ad the Hebrew Reali school (that it’s students are considerd to come from houses that are well financially, and the school is often spoken of as a “school for the rich and elitist”).

Hence, our question is this - are we all equal?

If we will take a look from a philosopher’s point of view, we are, indeed, all equal.

But in real life it is not quiet true.

If we were all equal we would all recieve the same amount of money in our paycheck at the end of the month, manifestations such as racism and chauvinisim would not exist, there would be more female judges in the supreme court and we would not be familiar with the term “minorities”.

It is very nice that in a high region we are all equal - because in reality we are not.

and when we are not equal, and that the amount of money on our paycheck at the end of the month is different, and we pay different amount of taxes, and discrimination and rasicm are a common thing, and a man is not necssarily the same as it’s friend - a man can decide on the kind of education that he believes that is the best for his child.

As part of it’s duty to the citizens, the ministry of education oporates a net of schools called public schools. And ad one can understand of those schools name, the are open to the public, which means that every citizen can use the schools that the ministry “provides”.

A parent that can afford tutition in a school that he hinself believe that will be the best for his child, and that can provide his child more (whether it can provide more on an academic base or on a social base or on both bases) than what the public schools can provide, why shouldn’t he choose to afford it?

The wat we see it, there are two types of people that choose to send their kids to the Hebrew Reali School. One type is the type that relies on the history, fame and repertoire that accompany the name of the school. The other type is the type that want it’s children to attend an educational institution of high standard, that exposes its studentds to more opportunities and servies than the ones the public schools offer.

Most of the people who attened the Hebrew Reali School belong to the second type of people.

Everyone holds the right to put their potential into action, whether the potential is an academic one or a social one.

Every parent, family and citizen in Israel should have the right to make decissions on their own.

If we don’t have this basic right, a foundation stone in the democratic society, what tells us apart from countries ruled by dictators and undemocratic countries?.