Dear Friends,
Like all Israelis, the ICEI community has been facing the ongoing emergency situation; the initial shock of October 7th and its aftermath, the plight of the hostages, and the lengthy war with Hamas which is costing the lives of so many soldiers. ICEI has been managing multiple challenges, ranging from traumatic stress, disrupted instruction, and the absence of the husbands of many of our teachers due to the military call-up, which has been unprecedented in its scale and duration.
Initially, schools were closed completely, but as of this writing, all of our 53 schools have resumed in-person classes with the exception of one school in a northern border community which was evacuated due to Hezbollah attacks. The principal was temporarily reassigned to run a school for evacuees, 40% of whom are her own evacuated students.
ICEI’s team of literacy coaches, principal mentors, pedagogical supervisors, and parent and community engagement staff have stayed in close contact with school faculties, professionally and personally, providing guidance and encouragement to help our school communities keep focus and promote meaningful instruction as much as possible. We have arranged for psychological support services for students and teachers and have allocated hundreds of hours of small group and individual instructional support, which will deploy Acceleration Modules to close gaps among students who have fallen behind.
Despite these difficulties, ICEI has experienced exceptional growth in 2023-24. We are thrilled to share that at the start of the school year, we launched a major five-year $9 million (33 million NIS) Joint Venture with the Ministry of Education for our Tamkin program, in conjunction and with funding from the Ministry of Social Equality. The Tamkin Joint Venture expands our program to 15 additional underperforming Arab elementary schools, serving some of Israel’s lowest income Arab communities. We also expanded the ICEI schools in the Ministry’s Meisharim Initiative from seven to twelve schools and welcomed four additional Jewish and Arab schools to the ICEI network through the government education portal, Gefen. You can read more about Tamkin, Meisharim, and other special events below.
With the generous collaboration of the LightSail company and participating publishers, we have expanded the schools taking part in our pilot program for 5 th -6 th graders using the LightSail Digital Reading and Instruction platform from ten schools to eighteen schools, including our two schools in Ashkelon. LightSail gives our students access to 300 titles from leading Israeli publishers, encouraging more independent reading and enabling teachers to more easily engage in remote instruction around literature.
We are praying for the safe and healthy return of our remaining hostages and all of our soldiers, and a conclusion to the war that we hope will ultimately lead to a better and more secure future for everyone living in this region. We thank for your steadfast support during this particularly difficult time. Wishing all of you and all of us a better new year and a happy 2024.
Don Futterman,
Executive Director, ICEI
An Unprecedented Initiative in Arab Elementary Education
We are thrilled to have launched, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Equality, our Tamkin Joint Venture in 15 Arab underperforming elementary schools serving some of the lowest income communities in the country and the most in need of intervention.
Elementary education lays the groundwork for child development, academic achievement, and economic opportunity. Yet Arab elementary schools disproportionately account for 50% of the “chronically failing” elementary schools in Israel, perpetuating inequality between Arabs and Jews in Israel.
The Tamkin Joint Venture seeks to change this reality. An unprecedented investment in the field of Arab elementary education by the Ministry of Education in a partnership with the Ministry of Social Equality and philanthropy totaling close to 33 million NIS ($9 million) over five years, Tamkin is poised to have a significant system-wide impact. “The Department of Elementary Education sees Tamkin as an opportunity to create fairness and equal opportunities for students, particularly for disadvantaged populations”, notes Hana Laloush, Director, Department of Elementary Education, Israel Ministry of Education. “Tamkin׳s entry into the 15 schools during the war provided a meaningful anchor for teachers and principals, giving them someone to lean on, consult with, and guide them during the emergency situation. Knowing that ICEI staff were there to support them was critical in building resilience among school staff and principals during this difficult time.”
Harnessing ICEI׳s proven teaching methodologies, entirely reconceived for Arabic instruction, Tamkin trains and supports school principals and teachers to accelerate academic achievement and foster a cohesive school culture.
Despite the difficult start to the school year throughout the country, the 15 schools in the Tamkin Joint Venture are already making great progress. School staff are taking to the program wholeheartedly and are already seeing positive changes in their classrooms and in their students.
“Three months into the project, despite the war, you can already see how the classrooms look different. They are much more active, non-conventional classrooms. The students work, read aloud in groups, and the change is already evident in the faculty meetings”, shares Mr. Hassan Ayoub, Acting Director, Department of Arab Elementary Education, Israel Ministry of Education.
“We have developed success indicators for student achievement, teachers’ professional development, and organizational management and are incorporating these goals into the program. I believe that if we provide conditions for success – students will succeed.”
“After 30 years in various education positions, I understand that the difficulties in elementary education in the Arab community lie in the teaching more than in the learning”, adds Jinan Zoabi, National Instructor for Language Education and Tamkin Coordinator, Department of Arab Elementary Education, Israel Ministry of Education. “I believe this program, which puts the emphasis on the faculty and on instruction, training and guiding educational staff in the classroom, can bring change. It is evident that ICEI is providing what we in the field have been asking for. I’m very optimistic about the success of this program and the success of our dear pupils.”
Leading up to the launch of the Tamkin Joint Venture at the start of this school year, ICEI recruited and trained several new staff members. Our Tamkin team now comprises thirteen dedicated members, including a Program Director, Pedagogic Director, Pedagogic Supervisors, Principal Mentors, and an Assessment Coordinator. The Tamkin staff also developed curricula for social-emotional learning, resources which are crucial to allowing students to develop their emotional intelligence and cope with this difficult period.
“I feel so lucky to be part of this program”, reported Youssef Mahajny, principal of Ein Ibrahim, Umm El-Fahm. “If I hadn’t been given the chance to participate in Tamkin through the Ministry of Education, I would have purchased it myself. It is that worthwhile.”
“I am extremely proud of this program and of my team”, says Sally Awad Asfour, Director of Tamkin, ICEI. “Despite the challenges, every single school in Tamkin is advancing and we can see a real change in the school culture and in the classrooms. Teachers are taking monitoring and evaluation seriously, learning from baseline data to create individualized lesson plans that meet each child’s needs. Teachers, principals, and students alike are more confident in their abilities to succeed. Our Principal Mentors, Pedagogical Supervisors, and Literacy Coaches are going above and beyond, with professionalism and thoughtfulness. I look forward to watching these schools transform and grow over the next five years. This is only the beginning.”
A Peak Year in the Meisharim-Turnaround Schools Initiative
This is a peak year for ICEI’s work with the Meisharim-Turnaround Schools Initiative. Having welcomed five new schools this year, we are currently operating in 12 Jewish and Arab elementary schools through the Meisharim framework across all three Meisharim cohorts.
Nitzan Eshbal, Director of the Meisharim-Turnaround Schools Initiative, appreciates working with ICEI: “ICEI has an extremely professional team who are responsible for the success of guiding and transforming these schools. The organization is very impressive in their systematic approach, which is rare among nonprofit organizations, especially in the field of education. ICEI is very methodological and confident yet display great openness to collaborate and take part in the joint learning processes of the Meisharim program.”
Hana Gilat, ICEI Program Director, says, “Our significant growth in recent years reflects recognition of our work, but also raises the question: How do we expand without sacrificing our quality and professionalism? To this end, we have been diligently building and investing in our team and infrastructure to ensure we can continue delivering high-quality and individualized support to every school we serve. We are well prepared and proud to be impacting more schools, faculty, and students than ever before within Meisharim.”
ICEI began the school year by mapping the seven Meisharim areas for each of the five new schools to understand their unique challenges and goals. We created a detailed road map for each school, aimed at turning these struggling schools into successful ones, while assessing and meeting the shifting needs.
In Loving Memory
ICEI mourns the recent death of long-time board member, Professor Alice Shalvi, at the age of 96. Alice was a recipient of the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Education and received countless other honors. Alice was an innovative educator, tireless social activist, and a founding mother of modern Jewish feminism in Israel.
Alice created the English department at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva in 1969. In 1975, she took over as principal of the Pelech High School in Jerusalem, transforming it into one of the top schools in the country. In 1984, she co-founded the Israel Women’s Network, one of the leading lobbies for women’s rights and gender equality in Israel to this day, combatting sex trafficking and sexual harassment and fighting gender-based wage inequalities. In 1997, Alice became the rector of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, creating a number of new programs, including a master’s program combining art and Judaism. Alice also contributed significantly to Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, and in 2018, Alice published her memoir, Never a Native, which won the 2019 National Jewish Book Council Award for Women’s Writing.
One of Alice’s favorite ICEI activities, which she attended well into her 90’s, was the Annual Young Writers Competition Awards Ceremony, ICEI’s network-wide contest for third to sixth graders, intended to promote the love of writing and showcase the talent of our students.
Lior Brown, ICEI Board Chair, shares, “Professor Shalvi was a role model for all of us fortunate enough to have served with her. She understood that literacy and language gaps perpetuated gaps in equal opportunity for our elementary school students. Her unwavering support for ICEI was a source of inspiration.”
Don Futterman, ICEI’s Executive Director, adds, “Alice was a national educational leader and a pioneer in women’s rights, a Shakespeare scholar, a woman of supreme intelligence, wit, and vision, who always shared her keen insights with the ICEI board and staff. She cared deeply about Israeli society, in all its facets, and particularly about disadvantaged communities. She constantly encouraged us, board members and staff, alike, to stay true to ICEI’s mission. With the passing of Alice so soon after that of founding chair Mary Ann Stein (z”l), it’s been a difficult year. We deeply miss and mourn them both.”
Celebrating Sigd
Last month, we celebrated the Ethiopian-Jewish holiday of Sigd with two special events on Zoom for our students in partnership with the Ethiopian Jewish Heritage Center: first, an interactive session with Ethiopian-Israeli actor Yossi Vasa, writer and creator of the popular sitcom Nevsu, in which Yossi told how he fulfilled his dream of becoming an actor. Second, our own Menberu Shimon, Director of Parent & Community Engagement and Atzmaut Plus, hosted an online reading of his children’s book, “Look Who Came to Sigd!”
Twelve ICEI schools, involving 1,200 students and teachers, took part in the events. “Sigd was a day of prayer and communal soul-searching, and in Israel it has also become a demonstration of unity and connection,” Shimon explained. “It has been very heartwarming to see the excitement of all the children around the Sigd holiday, especially during this difficult time.”
We wish a happy and peaceful 2024 to all our friends, partners,
colleagues, and their families in Israel and abroad
