The problems of schools in RBS

Now that the court has ruled that the girls of Mishkenos should be allowed to stay in the split Safot vTarbuyot building, here are the issues I have identified as necessary for being dealt with moving forward.

these four or 6 classrooms being used by the girls of Mishkenos Daas in no way solve the problem. It lightens the burden on the Mishkenos situation, temporarily, but in no way solves it. What happens next year when 10 more classrooms are needed - a few more for Mishkenos and some more for a couple other schools? What then?

This issue, putting the Mishkenos girls in the Safot building is nothing more than a band-aid.

The real problem is that the city is sitting on 70 million shekels that it has not spent over the past 3-5 years. The excuse, errr reason, they give is the land development costs are too high and the Ministry doesn't give enough, making the Iryah put some of its own money (about 20%) out. As well, all plots designated for building schools are filled with caravans. They cannot move the caravans and build schools because there is nowhere to put the caravans in the meantime!

I am not a city planner, but these are my thoughts on what the city must do to solve the problem:

1. They must perform an overhaul of the land allocations for schools. They must review every single allocation and make sure all allocations are being used properly and efficiently. If they find schools are only using small amounts of the alloocation, the plot must be pulled and given to a different school that needs more space, and the smaller school can be given a smaller allocation. if a school has moved out of its temporary location, they are not allowed to rent out an Iryah allocation of land to another institution, but it should be returned to the Iryah so that it can be given to the next school in line for a plot.

 2. There is tons of empty land all over edges of the various neighborhoods, if none can be found within. Do some rezoning of necessary. Put caravans on those empty parcels of land and move ALL schools not in buildings but in caravans or temporary structures onto those lots. Bus kids if necessary as a temporary situation. And now take all the empty lots, remove the caravans and build the schools. Within a couple years, most schools will have buildings and the caravans can be dismantled.

3. Future neighborhoods should be planned and built with the schools simultaneously. They know that if a neighborhood is meant to be populated in, say, 2016, there will be families with kids moving in in 2016. That means dont plan to build the schools in 2019, but to have them built in time for 2016. in RBS C (aka Gimmel) they are already fighting, as 2 schools bought apartments in a luxury project. The neighbors are livid and are refusing to allow them to open saying they paid good money for a luxury project and do not want 4 gans (and a health clinic) in the building. The city is turning a blind eye, even though it is unlicensed, because they havent built buildings yet, dont want to put down caravans, and have no other solution. So there is a fight going on right now between residents and the heads of 2 different schools.

4. traffic is horrible in the mornings on Kishon in both directions, and Soreq as well, with all the schools on Soreq and Arugot and kids crossing the streets. the jams are starting earlier and earlier in the mornings. This needs a solution. I dont know what, but it is something that also needs to be dealt with.

Just my thoughts. I am not mayor, and I am not a city planner. I don't care if the mayor or city planners take these ideas and implement them or if they come up with their own plans and implement them. I would like to see the mayor present the public with his plan for solving the problems, rather than just be happy he found 4 or 6 more classrooms to be used.

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