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We ascribe the utmost importance to maintaining our partnership with the Hand-in-Hand
Association,
the State and the Negev educational authorities: both the
Ministry of
Education and Culture
and the Beer-Sheva Municipality. These
partners have played a key role in shaping the kindergarten and preschool framework as well as in helping to
create
the Hagar School, which opens in the Fall of 2009 with our first grade class.
The Hagar School is a public institution: all of our educational frameworks are officially recognized by the
Israeli
Ministry of Education and the Beer-Sheva Municipality. Hagar sees this recognition as an important
achievement, since
we believe that Jewish-Arab bilingual education, with its promotion of the highest standards of academic
excellence,
should be at the heart of the social and educational life of the Negev, rather than a private initiative.
Therefore,
Hagar has adopted the core curricula and guidelines developed by the Ministry of Education. In addition to
these core
curricula, however, the preschool and school use specific educational programs tailored to our bilingual and
multicultural orientation and our worldview.
To date, the Hand-in-Hand Association, has
founded three bilingual Arab-Jewish schools in
Israel. The school in Beer-Sheva thus joins the other schools in the Galilee, Jerusalem and Kafr-Qara. The
Hand-in-Hand Association supports Hagar by sharing knowledge, experience, and activity patterns in education,
teacher
training, fundraising, and community outreach. Because Hand-in-Hand has over twelve years of experience in
bi-lingual
education, they have served as a very rich source for us. Hagar also shares the long-term vision of
Hand-in-Hand,
which is a nationwide network of Jewish-Arab schools that aspires to challenge and fundamentally transform
public
education in Israel
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