Six schools to open in the North under new inititative

The Improving the North initiative was launched after the Second Lebanon War to improve education and quality of life.

By BEN HARTMAN
Even as a teachers’ strike loomed, 6,000 children in the North were preparing for the first day of school at six new buildings set to open their doors Wednesday.
The schools were built across the region as part of a $60 million initiative launched by the Rashi Foundation to strengthen areas distant from the center of the country. The funding for the project came from donors in Israel and abroad as well as the Education Ministry, local councils, and the Rashi Foundation.
The Improving the North initiative was launched immediately after the Second Lebanon War and is meant to improve education and quality of life in the region. The program will allow children and teenagers in an outlying area of the country to study in high-quality institutions, which will also serve as anchors for the communities they’re located in.
One of the six schools is the rebuilt and expanded Ra’ananim special education school in Kiryat Shmona, whose original building was hit by a Katyusha rocket during the war and never repaired.
The new building, built with special-needs students in mind, will open its doors to some 120 Jewish and Arab students from 26 towns across the western Galilee who suffer from a range of disabilities.
The Shlomi High School in that northern Galilee town will be the community’s first high school, and will offer religious and secular students enrichment courses in science and a “young entrepreneurs” study track, in addition to the regular core curriculum.
The program also includes an elementary school in Merom Hagalil, and three institutions for pre-school age children.