School year 2011-2012 began without a hitch, as 10,400 city schoolchildren returned to their classrooms. Of them, 2,100 are in the kindergarten framework (hova and trom hova), and 8,300 are school aged children (Grades Aleph to Yud-Bet), evenly distributed between elementary (4,300) and secondary (4,000) schools. Included in these numbers are over four hundred first-graders in 14 classrooms throughout the city.

This year, the number of kindergartens has grown to 77, while the number of schools (State, and State Religious) has reached 22. Of these, 12 are elementary schools and 10 are secondary schools.

Among the city-wide projects slated to continue this year are:

Promote Health – a project for kindergarteners and school aged children to encourage proper nutrition, dental hygiene, and regular physical activity;

City Players – a music appreciation program;

Passageway – a program to help kindergartens make the transition from gan to school

The long school day will be in effect in all city schools.

The “Nirim” School for special education has doubled in size to seven classes in Grades Aleph to Zayin.

Building and expansion of city schools continues apace: The Yofeh Nof State Religious School in the Nofeh Selah (07) neighborhood; completion of the building of the new Amit 6-year religious high school for boys and girls; the building of three new kindergartens in the Nofei Selah neighborhood; the completion of the building of the city’s music conservatory; the expansion of Ulpana Tzviya, and more.