The Ministry of Education threatened to do so if Mayor Moshe Abutbol would ignore their warnings and move ahead with his plans to move the Beis Yaakov classes into the building anyway. Abutbol ignored the warnings, and now there is a tzav sgira against the school. The school has to be closed from these premises within 30 days.
The closure order is because the Ministry takes it very seriously that the local authority went just days before the opening of the school year and it took such a unilateral action that affects the relations between different sectors in Bet Shemesh.
According to the Ministry of Education, they have offered Abutbol, in the past, alternative solutions, an appropriate building. Abutbol denies it and says he was only offered more caravans, but with nowhere to put them,
Personally, I don't know why a decision affecting the relations between different sectors is an issue the Ministry of Education should care about. they should care about education, do kids have an appropriate place to learn, does one school have the right to take the resources of another, and other similar issues - but to close a school because of affecting the relations of sectors seems strange.
What concerns me more than this closure order though is that perhaps Abutbol has messed up Bet Shemesh for a long time to come. This was not reported in the news, but I heard it separately from different sources. It seems different Haredi MKs, including specifically Gafni and Deri, warned Abutbol not to take this step of moving the school in. It seems they have many issues on their plate and this would cause them too much of a headache. Abutbol went ahead anyway and made his move. Now, from what i am told, they are washing their hands of him and not willing to come to help him get out of the mess. They say he has caused them more trouble than he is worth.
So not only has Abutbol damaged his relations with the Ministry of Education, but it seems he has also lost his natural partners. Bet Shemesh might now be on its own...
and for him to do this now with the threat of a fight looming regarding splitting the city, is just irresponsible.
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"Personally, I don't know why a decision affecting the relations between different sectors is an issue the Ministry of Education should care about. they should care about education..."
ReplyDeleteSeems pretty obvious to me. Dont hide your head in the sand. We know what Yesh Atid stands for. And its not education. This is probably part of the national agenda
What are these alternatice solutions the MOE has proposed? There are no buildings locally. If its more caravans, why is that considered an alternate arrangement?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the chilonim's problem? Seriously, at the end of the day, half of the school building, including the courtyard around it sits empty every day of the school year. What is their real concern with the BY moving in? Is it just hatred? Is there a real reason? I am yet to hear or read anything. The best I have heard is that this was done last minute. Punishing the girls in the school of MY because Abutbol is incompetent or unorganized is not really fair. Do they have a real issue? I am quite curious
For the past 2+ years, there has been a plot assigned for Mishkenot Da'at to have a permanent school building built. However, it is in the location adjacent to the shopping center, and Abutbol has not been willing to anger the chareidi schools that are currently there that would have to move out in order to enable the building of a schoold building. He has been applying band-aid after band-aid in the form of caravans at the current Mishkenot Da'at building (which has only 9 classrooms for a school of 24 classes, not including special needs classes) but this year there is literally no place to plunk another caravan, as they have basically no more outdoor area (yes, that means that they have almost nowhere to play during recess). Any solution needs to include the commencement of the building of the permanent school building.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know this ?
DeletePerhaps you are right about that plot of land. And perhaps it would anger the 2 schools that are already using that plot of land but how does that solve any issues?
DeleteThere still is no building just a bunch of caravans.
And instead of MD girls not having a place to learn the kids in that cheder (we have 3 boys there) and that beis yaakov are now going to be displaced.
That is not a solution.
It's a shame that the secular leadership fought this and now will legally force this school to remain empty.
Maybe some sanity will reign.
so what is the solution? not building buildings isnt a solution either. finding 6 empty classrooms is just another bandaid, because what happens next year when 10 more classrooms are needed? if the beis yaakov was given this entire building, they wouldnt fit into it and youd still have something like 300 children without a place to elarn.
ReplyDeleteso whats the solution?
and building gimmel without building any school buildings.. bringing thousands of more people, families with lots of kids, with no school buildings, is just exacerbating the problem.
so whats the solution?
I have a feeling, that the mayor does not take his orders from MKs in UTJ, not even Shas, but from more extreme Rabbonim here in Beit Shemesh, this i quite logical, as they got him elected and re-elected. What is the solution? Only by talking, mutual respect and understanding, all the things we should be doing during Elul. but I don't think the powers involved have the will for that - unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to talk when the other side doesn't even show up for the meeting!
DeleteIt's literally criminal that Abutbol has allocated so little space for schools in the new neighborhoods that are being built. Even if Misrad haChinuch/Mifal Hapayis is prepared to build 10 brand new schools in Bet Shemesh tomorrow- there is nowhere left to put them!! How does he expect to solve the classroom shortage problem? The only strategy he seems to have is to make life hell for the chilonim so they'll all leave and their schools will go to Chareidim. I am so sick of seeing our city in the news for yet another embarrassment. Who ever heard of a city administration doing anything (never mind putting up a wall!) literally in the middle of the night?? It's bizarre. Why are we Americans such complete friars? Why didn't we elect our own people to our own party to deal with things in a normal way?? Why do we just mindlessly keep on voting for these parties that we know by now won't help us? There are thousands of Anglos in Bet Shemesh and we should unify into one party that does things American style-democratically, fairly and transparently without this horrible focus on us vs. them and all this divisiveness.
ReplyDeleteBetter to back a party that (a) listens to you and (b) can bite when it needs to - which in calmer times just means has a lot of good pull nationally. Because Americans never, ever bite - and in calmer times they get upset about protexia too. So we don't really want an American party here it would be totally ineffective.
DeleteI live in the neighborhood. (My kids are also in caravans but not in that school).
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the idea that the kids are bussed in means they have no right to the building is obnoxious. They live in this city (albeit not right up the block from the school). There’s a huge building in Ramat Bet Shemesh B that houses a school where 99% of the students come from Rama Alef. Why not? We are one city.
Second, a school building that is half empty needs to share the space with another school. The school is not a private building – the city granted them that space assignment, and if they don’t need it all, it goes to another school. Simple. (The problem is there are NO transparent rules for how schools are assigned space, how many years people have to wait, etc., how much under-uyilization of space requires you to move, etc. A charedi yeshiva currently in Jerusalem was granted land in RBS-C to build on, even though local schools do not have buildings. Slimy politics there.)
However, although I think the school should have to let other kids use the non-used space, I will say that in fairness to the secular parents, when people suggest that their kids have no rights to the space they’ve been in for years “because the neighborhood is religious” and after the things that were said against secular people in the last election, I don’t blame the secular parents for being angry and frightened.
And I don't fault you but until we stand up for all of our citizens, instead of just being anonymous, whoever pushes harder will keep getting their way. I don't like taking over schools kitzoni style any more than I like city council members spray painting school walls, temporary or otherwise.
Delete"MiriamS" - feel free to print your whole name if you object to people being anonymous.
DeleteWho spray painted what? nobody knows what you are talking about.