Grant amount
NIS 650,000
Opening Excellence Classes in Hadera
A Municipal Program to Raise the Rate of Ninth Grade Students Graduating Excellence Classes to 35% (370 students) by 2023.
A Municipal Program to Raise the Rate of Ninth Grade Students Graduating Excellence Classes to 35% (370 students) by 2023.
The city of Hadera, in the northern Sharon region of Israel, is home to 97,000 residents. Its school system serves 23,000 students, of which about 7,000 study in eight middle and high schools. Traditionally, the city emphasized democratic and humanistic education and had no special focus dedicated to excellence in mathematics and the sciences. In 2019, only 10.6% of the city’s twelfth grade students graduated five-unit mathematics, in comparison to a 15.5% average in all of Israel.
Now there are initial signs for possible change. The municipality appointed Shlomi Dahan as its new Head of Education Department. Dahan previously headed the Education Department of Tirat Carmel where he collaborated with the foundation in a municipal excellence program, which had a significant impact. He is an active member in the ‘5p2’ coalition, as a former school principal and an engineer in a high-tech company. Under his educational leadership, Hadera is now planning to set a goal to expand the circle of excellence in its middle schools.
The municipality is preparing for a three-year program, aimed to unleash untapped potential of students. Today, only 9.7% of the students learn in three excellence classes. Therefore, the plan is to open 10 new classes in 8th and 9th grades in six schools, providing each with two additional teaching hours in mathematics. In addition, the municipality will gradually convene six elective groups for 8th and 9th grade students, to focus on application of high order mathematical thinking in science.
Twenty-four mathematics and 18 science teachers of the new and existing excellence classes will join professional learning communities. Seminars and workshops for teachers and parents will convene, and 23 principals and mathematics department heads will join a forum to learn and prepare together to implement the excellence goals in their schools.
The ultimate target is that by 2023, 35% of students (approximately 370 students) will graduate ninth grade in an excellence class and that 90% of them will demonstrate high performance in a readiness test, aligned with the top 5-6 levels of the PISA mathematics framework.
* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 424