Back to School to Back Home

The academic year 2019/2020 started for students of Grade 9 on 23 September 2019. It was wonderful to restore Grade 9 to our academic program after two years of closure. Boarding students of all grades returned to school on Sunday 29, and classes started on Monday 30 September.
It was a promising start. We had a huge number of applications. We reopened Boys Boarding Home 7 and Girls Boarding Home 3.
Although the maximum number of beds in the boarding department was 135 in accordance with the new plan, there were many extremely needy cases that forced us to add more beds. We found places for seven more to allow more disadvantaged children to benefit from our boarding care.
This year 142 boys and girls are in the boarding department. We have 109 students in the Vocational School and 159 students in the Academic School.
We employed one extra trainer for Car Mechanics and two educators for the boarding department.
Many more students were on the waiting list, so when some of the new students left because they couldn't adjust to boarding life, we easily replaced them with others who were very eager to be in our school.
The summer projects were completed on time. Elisabeth von der Decken Hall had water-ducts built around its Western and Southern sides to protect its foundation. The toilets and facilities of Boys Boarding Home 1 were completely renovated to stop water leaking from damaged and rusted pipes into Hermann Schneller Hall below.
Teachers completed Office 365 Seminar 2 just before the start of the academic year. They were readily equipped with additional skills to enhance teaching and make it more fun to students.
All was going very well. We were delighted to have a number of students who passed the official exams of Grade 9 join the vocational Dual System program. Not only those who failed were choosing vocational training. This was an indication of a very positive change in the mentality of people, both young and old.
The huge number of applications for students wanting to join JLSS, especially the boarding department, was very strange. It was a reversal of the trend of previous years. We barely managed to cope with the huge pressure and start on time.
This was an indication of the enormous suffering people in Lebanon were going through. Failure of the government to pull Lebanon out of the very serious financial crisis that started with the ridiculous increase in salaries to the public sector and teachers two years ago, was very obvious. Every step the cabinet took was digging Lebanon further into the hole.
The only answer the government had was taxes on poor people, and more a more taxes. There was a disconnect between the ruling rich and the destitute population which was impoverished to an alarming level. It only took one additional tax on WhatsApp on Thursday 17 October to make people literally mad and take to the streets in revolt. This was happening spontaneously in every region of Lebanon.
Demonstration were everywhere. Roads were closed disrupting travel to every region. The country was brought to a standstill.
Schools and universities were closed. It was extremely difficult to send boarding children to their homes because most of the roads were closed. Miss Rabab with her team of educators worked tirelessly until they managed to make sure every child was safe at home.
Parents who could not make it to JLSS asked others who were in JLSS to bring their children with them. They helped each other in a nice way. Some wanted their children to stay in JLSS. We explained to them that teachers and trainers cannot make it to JLSS because the roads are closed and the boarding educators cannot work 24/7. We only have one team of educators. We also had to be cautious as no one knew how the situation will develop.
We quickly shifted from "Back to School" to "Back Home" for all our students, teachers trainers, educators and members of staff.