Adalah Petitions Supreme Court Demanding the Return to Suitable Classroom Facilities for Eight Hearing Impaired Children in Tirah

Today Adalah submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of eight hearing impaired Arab children, citizens of Israel. The children range in age from three to five, and are from the southern Triangle region. The petition demanded that the Court immediately instruct the Ministry of Education (MOE) to reopen two hearing impaired kindergarten classes at a school in Tirah at which the children had previously studied. In December 2002, the MOE decided to move the children to an unsafe, sub-standard kindergarten classroom.

Initially, the MOE informed the parents of the pupils that their children would be moved to a better facility. However, the new room is clearly unfit for use as a kindergarten. It is only 15 square meters in size, and located in a basement stairwell of a busy elementary school. The room is dark and poorly maintained, with broken windows and exposed electrical wiring.

After their children were moved, the parents contacted the MOE and other authorities numerous times, demanding that the pupils be given a suitable classroom. The parents also refused to send their children to school until the situation improved, which led to the closure of the special hearing impaired kindergarten by the MOE. In explaining the closure, the National Inspector of Special Education told the parents that, "The kindergartens for hearing impaired children are being closed due to your neglect to exercise your child's right to special education. You will be able to request special education rights for your child for the 2007-8 school year." The children have since been at home for over four months, and have not been receiving needed educational or medical services.

Adalah Staff Attorney Orna Kohn argued in the petition that the children are in need of special educational services due to their hearing impairments, and that by denying these services, the MOE is violating their basic rights to education, dignity and equality. Denying special education services to the children, Adalah also argued, conflicts with the stated goals of the Special Education Law (1998) vis-a-vis students with special needs, namely "to develop and advance their skills, to improve their abilities and to ease their integration into society and the work-force." Adalah further argued that the MOE is in violation of international human rights covenants to which Israel is a state party.

Adalah stressed that the children's situation is continuing to deteriorate while they are deprived of educational and health care services, when it could be improving if they were to receive proper care and education. The families of the children are also suffering, Adalah noted, due to the burden of caring for the petitioners.