Hollywood charter school refuses to end Hebrew lessons

Hollywood charter school refuses to end Hebrew lessons
Founder says district overstepping its bounds with language ban

Hebrew lessons learned Wednesday at the Ben Gamla Charter School seemed pretty straightforward. Read from right to left. There are no vowels in formal Hebrew.

But one lesson not learned on the taxpayer-funded campus, according to Broward County schools: Hebrew is not to be taught, at least for now.

The command not to teach the language came from the School Board on Tuesday, out of concern the charter school violates the federally established separation between religion and government.

There has been months of debate between the school system and Ben Gamla over whether Hebrew can be taught without also promoting a religion.

"I thought it was pretty evident: They are to suspend teaching of the language," Superintendent James Notter said Wednesday before sending the school a letter ordering them to stop teaching Hebrew pending more review by the county. "They heard the discussion."

The school founder, former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, nevertheless said Ben Gamla will not stop what it was established to do: Teach Hebrew. He argues the School Board is overstepping its bounds.

Charter schools are privately run public schools that must have a contract with a county school system, giving the district limited oversight. They have more freedom over curriculum than a traditional public school but, like those schools, must not teach religion.

"The whole point of charter schools is that they're not supposed to be micromanaged schools," said Ben Gamla's attorney, Eric Rassbach. "And that's what's happening here."

Deutsch and Rassbach said the School Board did not have the authority to shelve the language curriculum. The charter school was approved in May, and debate has mounted since.

Charter school representatives were at Tuesday's meeting to amend its curriculum for the third time to satisfy the School Board.

But the board put off approving the new language program until it could be scrutinized by a Hebrew professor hired to help monitor the school. With the backing of the full board, Beverly Gallagher, the board's chairwoman, suggested Ben Gamla teach only reading, writing and arithmetic until a Hebrew curriculum could be found that both sides agree on.

Rassbach said the board's deferment meant lessons previously approved must now be used to teach the 400 students attending the kindergarten through eighth-grade school.

Even though board members complained, they approved language programs in May and again in July saying they had few other options. The board didn't like the two previous programs, which were based in part on traditional Jewish texts and translating phrases such as "The Torah teaches us that every son has to honor his parents."

"The charter agreement says you have to teach Hebrew," Rassbach said Wednesday.

In public discussions, it has been unclear whether the school system could revoke Ben Gamla's charter.

And so, on the third day of the new school year, the students' bilingual education continued. Teachers started sentences in English and then finished in Hebrew. Students practiced the alphabet. Homework was assigned.

Ella Rav-On spent part of Wednesday teaching a class of seventh-graders interrogative phrases in Hebrew. The Israeli native wrote the Hebrew program criticized by the board the previous day. She emulated the district's Japanese and French programs to create the proposed Ben Gamla program.

The School Board is nitpicking and missing the big picture, she said.

There is a difference between language and religion, Rav-on said, using a moment from one of Tuesday's classes as an example.

She was teaching the days of the week. Shabat, she told the class, was Saturday. A hand went in the air. Shabat, the student said, starts Friday evening. Not Saturday.

"If you're religious, you welcome the Shabat on Friday," she explained. "But, I'm teaching you language. And in the days of the week, Shabat is Saturday."