DrorSchool

A Center for Education, Culture and Sport

Dror school was founded in Lev Hasharon in 1995 as a regional school serving 19 villages and towns in the area.

Currently there are more than 2100 students in the school from 7th to 12th grade (junior high and high school)

The staff consists of 181 teachers and about 36 administration and maintenance workers.

When the school was founded, it was officially declared as an experimental school. An experimental school is a school that develops and practices a new educational concept that can benefit other educational institutions as well.

During the experiment the school developed the concept of a flexible and adaptable organization and a flexible view of time. It was the rigidity of the organizational structure of the traditional schools that seemed to prevent them from being effective.

The flexibility in structure finds expression in the following areas:

  • Curricula
  • Group structure
  • Flexible timetable
  • Learning centers
  • Organization- administrative structure
  • The functions of leading roles
  • A self-managed school
  • Information management and creation of knowledge
  • Organizational culture
  • The expansion of the school's role in society

Following the first years of the experiment, Dror became a center for teaching other schools about the experiment and in this way spreading it to other schools in Israel.

Today, Dror is in the course of a second experiment constantly re-structuring and reinventing itself. The purpose of the second experiment is to bring each and every student to fully realize his/her potential. This can be done if the students' levels of functioning are addressed and defined. A student who doesn't function on a level that can lead him/her to realizing his/ her full potential receives special attention so as to get to the desired level. Schools don't usually address themselves to the issue of students' functioning in a systematic and active manner.

In 2005 DrorSchool was given the National Education Award by the Ministry of Education at the President's residence in Jerusalem in recognition of its vision and work.

School Characteristics

  1. The student population is heterogeneous.
  2. The classes are integrative; there is no division by level in the Junior high school.
  3. The school is comprehensive and offers students a flexible schedule with about 70 combinations of majors (subjects which the students choose to study on an advanced level).
  4. The school is a communal school. The parents are involved in school life. The school serves as a community center for the Lev Hasharon area. The students are expected to do service for the community.
  5. The school is self managed. There is a board of directors that oversees the budget and the annual programs.
  6. The school is a ProfessionalDevelopmentSchool. There is an important partnership between Dror and BeitBerl College. About 90 students and 6 instructors visit the school once a week for a day.

Special Projects

  • The Center for the Development of Excellence. Excellence, as a desired quality, should d be considered as an educational and social core value. This center was set up in an attempt to develop excellence as a way of living, thereby allowing each student to reach the highest level possible. It emphasizes a continuous and determined effort to achieve goals, a continuous improvement process, coping with failures and learning from success, creativity and openness, high personal investment and contribution to others. As part of this center, students are taught leadership skills.
  • Teaching Civic Education as a Leverage for Peace in the Middle East – a program developed and taught by teachers in the Middle East countries
  • The school art gallery – a joint project of art students in Beit Berl and Dror putting together various exhibitions and opening them to the public. The students learn to become curators and will also guide the public through the exhibition.
  • Student exchange programs with partner schools in Germany, Comenius project of life long learning with Germany, Norway and Spain, Princess Kira Foundation art workshop in Hohenzollern Castle, Germany

For more information, contact

______