Yeruham will Expand the Rate of Excellence Class Graduates

Yeruham is a local council in the Southern District of Israel in the Negev desert, with a population of approximately 12,000. The council has three middle and high schools that serve 1,006 students. They include one school for boys, one for girls and one school for both religious and secular students, of higher and lower socio-economic status.

As for educational performance, there are fluctuations in the five-unit mathematics matriculation track, with 16.4% graduates in 2020 and only 12% of 12th graders currently enrolled. However, 30% of the students are enrolled in the 10th grade. The council claims that this is due to the students arriving ill-prepared from middle school. There is only one excellence class in middle school in 7th and 8th grades, but none in 9th grade. Therefore, they are now planning to open three classes in 9th grade, to which the council will allocate four additional weekly teaching hours each, with the aim of reaching 60 (38%) students graduating an excellence class by 2025.

A teacher leader will organize the council’s 12 mathematics teachers in a community and provide them with instructional coaching, based on the Technion’s iMAT program that developed tasks from high-tech contexts. Three science teachers will attend a state-level community and three department coordinators will attend a state-level course. In addition, six school principals will meet during the year.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 454