Today was the girls day to visit their new school.
We were lucky to find a British school for Summer that teaches in English. It is located in Jaffa, a town only a few miles away. Jaffa is a beautiful primarily Arab city with unique architecture, trendy markets and amazing restaurants.
Tabeetha is also a diverse school that starts in kindergarten and goes through high school. There are 2 classes per grade with 26 students. 20 are local students and 6 expats. The kids learn Hebrew AND Arabic in language classes each day. Summer found out she will be the only student from American in her 6th grade class with the exception of one student who has an American father. Mika will be the only American and since her class is a “reception class” the students will just be learning English. So, her classmates will speak everything from Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, German, Arabic, etc. I’m told although this sounds difficult to run a class with so many students speaking native languages, it actually works out well. Everyone will begin learning their English alphabet in a few months. Mika will be the youngest at 4, because the class starts at 5. But, since she will be turning 5 in November and already knows her alphabet, numbers, etc, she will already know a lot more entering the school.
Tabeetha looks NOTHING like an American school and the girls noticed that right away.
It has a mix of outdoor and indoor areas and not modern at all. They have a nice outdoor area where they eat lunch and play.
We picked up their school uniforms and signed all the paperwork before leaving. I think they will enjoy it more once school begins and they finally meet some friends.
I found out I need to find a way to get them to and from school each morning and afternoon. Their school schedule will be Monday-Thursday 8-2:30 and Fridays they get out at 12:30 for Shabbat. This is a different schedule than Israeli public schools because they operate Sunday-Thursday with a half day Friday. Jim’s work schedule will also be Sunday – Thursday, so this will be a little challenging.
I was told most of the kids walk to school, but the girls can’t. Construction on the street in front of the school makes drop off impossible. Parking in Jaffa at rush hour can be a challenge. There is a public bus that drops off in front of the school, but I need to learn which one to take from our apartment. I also need to go to the bus station to pick up a pass. Doing both of those things with the language barrier is making my head spin. One more thing to do!
After leaving Tabeetha, Jim took the girls to the apartment and Josh and I headed to the neighborhood school for a meeting with the principal that was scheduled the day before. The principal was a very nice British man who seemed very interested in us. Why are you in Israel? Are you Jewish? Does Josh know Hebrew? We have found just about everyone here wants to know WHY we came to Israel. The principal made some phone calls on the spot to try to help us find a school or at least a solution. He told us we were “an interesting case because you don’t fit any of the boxes”. What he meant by that is we are not Jewish, so we don’t qualify for Aliyah and the special services that come along with it for non Hebrew speaking students in local schools. He also explained because of Josh’s older age, he would be required to take high school tests (like the Israeli version of SAT and ACT) that can not be taken in English. These tests determine what part of the military Israeli students will enter after graduation. In Israel, there is mandatory military service after high school. In other words, he would be entered into a system which operates very different from the US. So we were reminded again there are no options for an American student like Josh to enter an Israeli high school. That’s when we finally decided EMIS boarding school was the only option for Josh.
After spending half the day with us, it was also move in day for Jim at his new office. It is located on the top floor of a skyscraper building near the Sarona Market.
Luckily he has some great colleagues that were there to assist while he was dealing with all of this school stuff. He was finally able to make it in by early afternoon. Since there is no Amazon here, YES NO AMAZON, he sent me a photo of them taping handles on the boxes for their new monitors so they could carry them on foot down the street to the office.
The view from their office on the top floor of the building is incredible!
Meanwhile the kids and I took our new bikes and scooters to lunch at a nearby burger place and then off to the beach to play.
Later that night we all ventured out to a nearby Kebab restaurant for a nice outdoor dinner in our new neighborhood. The food, like all the food here, was delicious!
