School founder, board stresses dual language, secular status
by Laura Burdick-Sherman
CorrespondentFormer congressman , the visionary behind the English-Hebrew Charter Schools set to open its first location in Hallandale this fall, is now busy with plans to open a Hollywood location with a similar concept.
When the Hallandale location of The Ben Gamla Charter School opens its doors on August 20th, it will make national news as the country’s first English-Hebrew Charter School.
“We’re focusing on Hollywood now because half of the kids who applied are in Hollywood; Hollywood is our first choice for the next location if we can find a large enough space,” said school founder and local political leader Peter Deustch. “I believe if I had 5,000 openings for kids, we could get 5,000 filled, maybe even 10,000 [applicants].”
In a letter secured by Hollywood Gazette, it seems as if a pre-zoned location will provide a city-approved jump start for Deustch’s vision of a Hollywood Hebrew-English Charter School.
“The property at 2620 Hollywood Boulevard, formerly home to another educational institution, had previously received the zoning necessary to run a school on the site just a stone’s throw from Hollywood City Hall,” said Ben Gamla’s local attorney Alan B. Koslow. “It’s grandfathered in.”
While initially planning to serve only children in grades kindergarten through third in Hallandale, community response was so great, administrators hope to increase the curriculum of the schools to accommodate students up to the eighth grade there.
Deustch, a former congressman who helped form the National Ben Gamla Charter School Foundation and then secure a charter from the Broward County Public School District, said his experiences with charter schools began 11 years ago when he was on the board of Somerset Academy.
Under President Clinton’s administration, charter schools first received federal attention and support.
With a focus on the Hallandale-Hollywood area, Deutsch said he began laying the groundwork for a Hebrew-English dual-language school last summer and that South Florida is the optimum spot for such a unique educational concept.
“There’s a huge Israeli presence in South Broward. South Florida is the second largest Hebrew speaking community in the world outside of Israel,” he said. “The school is a great opportunity for hopefully hundreds of students to learn the wonderful language and it’s a wonderful advantage for them to be able to communicate in a new world economy.”
According to the school’s administration, the Ben Gamla Charter School is individualized as a dual language school with an English-Hebrew curriculum but is based on Florida’s Sunshine State Standards which include math, science, reading/language arts, and social studies.
Deutsch explained that in a dual-language program, one academic class is taught in both languages along with one foreign language class. He said research has shown this technique has a very positive effect in helping students learn the foreign language.
“Dual language charter schools are not new to South Florida,” said Deutsch.
“Six years ago, the Greek- American community of Miami Dade created the dual language Greek program which has been a huge success. For a couple of years, I’ve told a variety of people about doing the Hebrew language [version]. Last summer, I started the process and created a not for profit entity.”
According to Susan Onori, Broward County Charter School Coordinator, another Broward County dual language school is the French-English middle to high school known as The International School of Broward. It is also opening in the 2007-2008 school year.
“While that school is approved for grades 6 through 12, only middle school grades will be open this year,” said Onori.
She emphasized that The Ben Gamla Charter School is the same concept as this because of its similar secular status.
“It’s not a religious day school. It’s going to be a dual language Hebrew-English charter school teaching Conversational Hebrew,” she explained. “If there’s any violation of church and state separation, the charter could be revoked by the school board of Broward County.”
Initially, said Onori, the school was going to use Hebrew conversational components from NETA but because it became controversial, that piece is being removed and amended.
NETA defined on the www.netahebrew.org website as a program that “integrates the four major language acquisition skills —listening, speaking, reading and writing — by immersing students in everything from classical Hebrew texts to Israeli music, and from historical documents to poetry and drama.”
The new language component will be reviewed and approved by the school board, she said.
Deutsch said the school does not screen applicants for any predisposition; the only requirement is that applicants want to speak and learn Hebrew.
Onori confirmed that a random lottery of applicants was conducted in which names were pulled out of a hat for the Hallandale location.
Deutsch, says Hollywood is the next logical location not just because of the overwhelming interest from the residents but because the City of Hollywood is behind charter schools.
“Hollywood has acknowledged how charter schools have helped other cities in terms of stability and property values,” he said. “Hollywood has already grown in so many positive ways in the past 10 years, and I think the next 10, 20, 30 years are only to be more positive. There’s definitely a trend in people moving back east and an urban-suburban Hollywood is taking advantage of that phenomenon and will continue to do so.”
Editor Meredith Brown contributed to this report.
