Summer News and Back to School 2022

Summer is the time to do all the necessary maintenance work needed on campus. This year it was time for the building of Industrial Mechanics and Car Mechanics to get a full paint-job. This building was not painted for the last twenty years. It was due for a major job. Workshops, classes, windows, and doors, both inside and out, were painted and restored to a clean fresh look.
We transformed one of the large rooms in the building to a teachers' and trainers' lounge. For some strange reason only the academic teachers had a lounge. It was time to correct this and make sure teachers and trainers of the vocational department had their lounge too.
Two main sewage pipes serving the building of BBH3 (Boys Boarding Home 3), the Kindergarten, gate-house, and the main office building were replaced with new ones. Roots of trees had penetrated the old sewage pipes and completely blocked them. A new sewage pipe was connected from BBH3 to the recently installed one of the Seminar building. The three buildings of the main office, gate-house, and kindergarten were connected to the public sewage system with a new pipe.
All paint-jobs that were needed around the school were done.
Maintenance work was also conducted around the campus as necessary.
Our dear friend Rolf Bartel travelled from Germany and stayed in JLSS from 25 September till 2 October 2022. He provided training to Mr. George Shawool who is in charge of the Energy Department. He supervised his work and provided him with the technical know-how in adjusting and controlling all central heating and solar systems. We thank Rolf for continuing to support our school with his technical expertise helping us make huge savings on diesel expenditure year after year.
We thank SVS (Schweizer Verein für die Schneller Schulen im Nahen Osten ) for supporting his travel expenses.
SVS also kindly supported the Summer School program which was held from 12 till 23 September. Underperforming children of the junior school were given extra lessons to help them get ready for the coming school year.
We thank SVS for supporting our Summer School programs year after year.
The new teachers who joined our team the last few years didn't have any training in using Microsoft 365 in teaching. We organized a two-day training seminar for them to ensure they can shift to this modern system. The seminar was conducted on 22 and 23 September by Mr. Ziad elSamad of Midway Data Systems, our Microsoft local partner. The training included OneNote, OneNote Class Notebook, Teams, Forms, and other elements of Microsoft 365. This badly needed training will help new teachers meet our requirement to use this modern system in teaching. Our new teachers can now enhance the learning experience of children and bring their teaching methods to the twenty-first century on a par with the rest of the Schneller team.
The number of student applications this year was huge, especially for joining the boarding school. This was due to the economic crisis in Lebanon that pushed 80% of the Lebanese population below the poverty line.
Most public schools have a low standard of education.
The wages of public school teachers are so low now they are not enough to pay for transportation to reach schools. Teachers have been objecting to their desperate situation through endless strikes.
The very high fees of private schools restrict them to the very rich.
The reasons above explain why we had so many applications this year.
We are now operating the boarding department at full capacity with many applications on the waiting list.
The new academic year began with Grade 9 of the academic department starting classes on 19 September. All other classes started lessons on 30 October 2022.
The start of the academic year 2022/2023 was transformed into a very joyful one through the visit of Rev. Dr. Fabian Vogt and producer Parviz Mir Ali from Germany. They stayed in JLSS form 21 till 28 October to produce the JLSS version of the EMS (Evangelical Mission in Solidarity) jubilee song: "Together We are Free".
Our children had a fabulous time that week while Fabian had the challenge of teaching them the song and Parviz toiled on his film-making.
We look forward to watching the final version.
We thank Fabian and Parviz for their wonderful visit, the joyful time they gave our children, and especially for helping JLSS produce its version of the jubilee song.
We express our sincere gratitude to EVS/EMS for all the support we receive covering every aspect of our program and enabling JLSS to continue its special mission to underprivileged children.