Bueine Nujeidat Promotes Excellence in Middle School

Bu’eine Nujeidat is a local council in the Northern District of Israel compiled of two villages (Bu’eine and Nujeidat), with approximately 10,300 residents and a diverse Arab population. The council residents are on the lower end of the national socioeconomic scale in Israel. There are two middle schools and one high school, attended by 1,136 students. In the middle school, there is one excellence class, attended by 20% (34) of the students. In 2020, only 8.3% of the students matriculated in five-units of mathematics (in comparison to a 15.6% national average).

The council believes that in order to reduce this drop down, it needs to expand and strengthen the basis of excellence in middle school. Today, the council is part of the Ministry of Education’s program to promote excellence in the periphery through which it receives additional teaching hours. However, these hours are utilized to practice the regular curriculum. The council now wishes to open additional excellence classes in 8th and 9th grades in both middle schools, with the goal of having 40% (70) of the students graduate an excellence track by 2024. They will allocate four additional weekly teaching hours to each of the classes.

In these excellence classes, the students will be exposed to high-level mathematical thinking content in line with PISA proficiency levels 5-6, and its applications in science. As for the teachers, the council insists that its thirteen mathematics teachers attend a local professional learning community, promising to ensure their ongoing participation. The community will be organized by an academic organization, which will train the teachers to use teaching practices suited to high order tasks.

Two of the council’s science teachers will join a state-wide community. In addition, two department heads will participate in a designated course where they will learn how to provide instructional coaching to the teachers in their schools as they teach the new high order mathematics assignments. The council will appoint a local part-time (25% FT) program coordinator who will be responsible for orchestrating all elements of the program and follow up on student performance.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 467