Adalah, the Association for the Development of Arab Education in Haifa and 33 Families Petition Supreme Court to Establish First Arab Special School for the Arts in Haifa
On 29 August 2007, Adalah submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of Israel on behalf of the Association for the Development of Arab Education in Haifa and 33 parents of elementary school children demanding the establishment of a special elementary school for the arts for Arab pupils in Israel. The petitioners also asked for the establishment of an Arab special school for the arts in Haifa to serve the petitioners' children and Arab students in the Haifa area and the north of Israel, and that it enable the Arab children who attended an arts-based kindergarten at the “al-Karma B” school in Haifa during the past year to continue studying at the same school.
There are currently 25 official special schools for the arts for Jewish children in Israel: 17 are classified as upper-regional schools, six are classified as regional schools, and two are classified as upper-regional/national religious schools. There are currently no special schools for the arts in Israel for Arab students.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) has established 57 Hebrew-language elementary schools of various kinds for Jewish children in Haifa. These schools include special schools for the arts, sciences, technology and communications, as well as democratic schools. This is in addition to several educational frameworks with diverse orientations, such as independently run schools. In stark contrast, there is just one special Arab school in Haifa (the Hewar School for Democratic Education), which was established following the Supreme Court's intervention. The Hewar School is not an arts school.
In March 2006, the Municipality of Haifa announced the opening of a special kindergarten for the arts for Arab children in the “al-Karma B” school in Haifa, which operated according to a special curriculum. This was the first Arab kindergarten for the arts to be recognized by the Municipality of Haifa as a regional kindergarten that is supposed to serve all Arab children in Haifa and the surrounding area, including children living outside of the registration zone. The kindergarten was actually opened in August 2006. Initially, 18 children were registered for the 2006-2007 school year, and thereafter the number increased to 23, some from the Haifa area and some from outside it.
The Association for the Development of Arab Education in Haifa and Adalah approached the Municipality of Haifa, the MOE and the Attorney General (AG) in order to obtain their approval that the children who have reached elementary school age will continue to follow their special arts-based education at the “al-Karma B” school. However, the Municipality of Haifa, the MOE and the AG denied all of the requests made. Yona Yahav, the Mayor of Haifa, argued in his response that opening a regional school “damages the sensitive structure of the socio-economic strata of Arab students living in Haifa.” The AG refused the requests because of a lack of students.
In the petition, Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher emphasized that the acceptance of children to the schools would be carried out via examinations to assess the suitability of the artistic skills of each student individually. Regarding the claim that there is no need to open another school due to a lack of students, Adalah argued that 850 children studied at the al-Karma school during the past year, which is a large number relative to the average number of students attending other schools in Haifa, which is around 400 children. Thus, the number of children is large and is expected to rise during the coming years, which necessitates the opening of a new school.
Adalah argued that the refusal to open a special Arab school for the arts violates the right of Arab children to equality, which compels the state to allocate resources equally among the citizenry. The state is also limiting the options available to Arab children compared to their Jewish counterparts: Jewish religious and secular children are provided with numerous and varied choices of schools, whereas Arab students and their parents have no choice regarding the schools in which they will study.
Several research projects have been undertaken into the use of art as a means of developing children's educational levels. This research found that in addition to improving the artistic skills of the children, an arts-based education also leads to an improvement in educational achievement, to shaping children's standing in society, to improving their interactions with the society around them, and to developing their cognitive and critical skills, writing ability, self-expression and comprehension.
H.C. 7339/07, The Association for the Development of Arab Education in Haifa, et al. v. The Ministry of Education and the Municipality of Haifa(pending)
