Letter from Neama Abu Delo, Primary School Principal

I am thrilled to be finishing my first year at Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom. It’s hard to believe a whole year has passed! It was not so long ago that I took on my position, with some qualms and a lot of questions: How were we going to transition the school to full functioning after two years of corona? How would we close the educational gaps widened by Zoom learning? How could we reinstill close relationships between students after two years of distancing?

Truly, the beginning was challenging. My first objective was to get a grasp of the existing situation and to find the resources and assets within the school that could be harnessed to accomplish the goals we had set.

Today, we are in a completely different place! If you walk into one of the classrooms, you’ll understand right away: You can breathe in the magic atmosphere of learning, see classes that have come together as a group; you’ll see staff working wholeheartedly to advance each and every student.

Above and beyond the standard curriculum, many beautiful things are happening in the school: for example, community celebrations around the various holidays and class events. There are amazing music lessons, as well as a rich, broad range of extracurricular lessons that address the various interests and talents of the students, including soccer, tricking (a cross between acrobatics and parkour) hip hop dancing, chess, photography, nature, theater, robotics for advanced students and more.

Going into the next year, we will continue to work on closing educational gaps and on advancing the school’s achievements. We will open a language center in order to reinforce the Arab-Jewish connection; we plan to erect a school greenhouse to serve the nature and science lessons; we are going to integrate robotics with English and technology for the advanced students; we mean to continue working on those things that make the primary school unique.

This is a good opportunity to thank the school’s wonderful staff, who received me with warmth, love and support, and who have accompanied me and worked with me over the year so that we could achieve the goals we had set for ourselves.

I’d also like to thank the Association of the Educational Institutions of Neve Shalom Wahat al -Salam for supporting the school in every aspect, and for doing so much to enrich the school with resources and programs that are really crucial in every way – pedagogically, ideologically and socially.

Finally, I want to thank the students and their families, all of whom gave us the opportunity to enjoy every day afresh, to get to know them and to have the pleasure of working with them. `