A New High School Building for the Max Rayne
Hand in Hand High School for Bilingual Education
The Jerusalem Foundation is thrilled to announce that the construction of the new building at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education in Jerusalem is underway! Today is a very special day that marks the culmination of three years of effort in partnership with our friends at Hand in Hand, and we are enormously excited that the construction has finally begun. We have no doubt that the new building will have a significant impact on the quality of the learning experience at the school and on the school’s presence in Jerusalem.
The construction is expected to last for almost two years and we’ll make sure to keep you updated on developments throughout this period. The first steps will be to erect a three meter high fence that will separate the site from the rest of the school and to put up acoustic walls to try and minimize the disruption to the neighbors. The next steps will be to build out the skeleton of the new building and remove the roof from the current sports hall to add reinforcements that will let us build upward. The aim is to complete all of the demolition and drilling work during these summer months before the students return to school in September. Another challenge will be the removal and replanting of several mature trees.
These are the pictures from the first day of construction:
When the Jerusalem Foundation made the inauguration of the existing campus possible at the end of 2007, this school was just the dream of a small group of parents who wanted to raise their children in a different way. Today the school is an established institution in Jerusalem – with 700 students, 9 graduating classes, exceptional academic achievements and with hundreds of families on waiting lists. What was once a dream, has become a reality, and all of Jerusalem now looks to the Hand in Hand school as pillar of hope for a shared and peaceful city. Over time, this school inspired a network of other schools around the country, and the 6 Hand in Hand schools with more than 2,000 students next year are largely a result of the example set by the flagship Jerusalem school. This new phase – building a dedicated high school building – will be essential in entrenching the practices of shared society in Jerusalem.
None of this would have happened without the support of many dedicated people, who have guided and supported this process for several years. On behalf of all of the students, teachers, parents and families at the school, thank you for helping to make this dream come true! We very much hope to see you at the grand unveiling in 2021.