Prize for head of school for foreign workers’ kids

Karen Tal from the Bialik- Rogozin School in south TA won the Charles Bronfman Prize for 2011.

By BEN HARTMAN
Karen Tal 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Karen Tal 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The principal of a south Tel Aviv school whose student body is made up largely of the children of foreign workers and asylum seekers has won the Charles Bronfman Prize for 2011.
The prize committee said that principal Karen Tal’s Bialik- Rogozin School “serves as a global model rooted in compassion for those seeking to provide the basic right of education to all children in environments where they can learn, grow and thrive.”
Bialik-Rogozin, which is home to around 800 students from 48 countries, was the subject of the film Strangers No More, which won the Best Documentary Short at the 2011 Academy Awards in February.
The prize includes a $100,000 award, and according to the prize committee “goes to a young humanitarian whose work is informed and fueled by Jewish values and has broad, global impact that can potentially change lives.”
Tal, who became the principal of the school in 2005, said Wednesday that winning the award brought her a great deal of excitement and it means there is recognition of the work that she and her staff are doing at Bialik- Rogozin.
“Our work is not done to win awards; it’s done because of our obligation to the work and to the children. The fact that our work gets attention and wins the biggest prize in the Jewish world gives us a great deal of pride in what we’re doing, and it is a very real feedback and a very positive feeling.”
Tal thanked the city of Tel Aviv and the Education Ministry for their help in carrying out the work of the Bialik- Rogozin school, and said she hopes the continued recognition of the school will have an impact on the around 180 of the school’s students who face the threat of deportation following a cabinet decision last August.
“We hope that all of this recognition that the school is getting will have an influence on the government and the future of these children.”