Trying to Go Back to School: Misgav Regional Council in the North and Beer el-Sabe Municipality in the South Cancel or Place Undue Barriers on Transport for Arab Students

On 1 September 2009, Adalah sent an urgent letter to the Misgav Regional Council and the Ministry of Education demanding the resumption of bus transport for 10 Arab students from the unrecognized neighborhood of Al-Qabsi (pop: 60) to elementary and preparatory schools in the neighboring village of Nahef in the Galilee. The parents were informed of the decision to discontinue the transport when checking with the education department of the Misgav Regional Council, which claimed that the parents are not registered as residents of the Regional Council. Due to the Council's decision, the students stayed home and did not attend school on the first day of the school year.

In the letter, Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher, argued that the Council's claim is very strange as Al-Qabsi is located in the jurisdictional area of the Misgav Regional Council and the Council has provided transport for the children of neighborhood residents since 1990. Attorney Zaher added that the suspension of transportation for pupils violates the Compulsory Education Law - 1949 and the Students’ Rights Law – 2000 as well as court decisions in this regard. These laws and the caselaw mandate that transport must be provided by the state where student homes are a certain distance from the school and in cases where there are no suitable schools available in the town in which they live.
 
Attorney Zaher also informed the Misgav Regional Council that if it does not respond to this demand and restore transport within three days, Adalah will be forced to go to court to compel it to do so.

In a related context, Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheve) Municipality repealed its decision to change the transport route for 150 Arab students who live in the city and travel each day to seven different schools in the nearby Arab Bedouin villages. This development came in response to a letter sent by Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher on 27 August 2009 to the mayor demanding that he revoke the decision.

Immediately before the beginning of the new school year, the Municipality informed the parents of affected students that it intends to reduce the number of vehicles used to transport the students from 10 mini-buses that can accommodate 15 students each to big buses that can seat 50 students. This change would mean that it would take around 1 ½ hours to collect all the students and bring them to the seven different schools instead of the 15 minutes it took with the mini-buses. Further, students who finished their school day at 12 noon would have to wait until the other students finished their school day at 2 pm. Adalah argued that the new transportation schedule would transform the day into a psychologically and physically exhausting experience for the students.

The city of Beer el-Sabe, which is home to thousands of Arab citizens of Israel, has no Arab school. Thus, parents are forced to enroll their children in kindergartens and schools in the nearby Arab villages or in Israeli Jewish schools.