Florida: School Can Resume Lessons in Hebrew

[Harold F. Schiffman]

September 12, 2007
School Can Resume Lessons in Hebrew

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sept. 11 (AP)  A charter school can resume teaching
in Hebrew, three weeks after the lessons were halted over concerns that
the Jewish faith was seeping into public classrooms, the school board
voted Tuesday. Broward County board members said that close monitoring of
the countrys first Hebrew-language charter school was still necessary, but
that its administrators had cleared up major concerns.

The school district will work with the school, Ben Gamla Charter School in
Hollywood, Fla., to create training programs for teachers and board
members to ensure the separation of church and state, Superintendent James
Notter said. Lesson plans will be submitted monthly for district review.
The school can teach about the Jewish faith but cannot advocate it. Hebrew
instruction is to resume Monday. Ben Gamlas roughly 400 students in
kindergarten through eighth grades follow the state curriculum but also
are to take a Hebrew language course.  One of their core subjects math or
physical education, for example is to be taught bilingually as well.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/us/12charter.html?ref=education
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