Picture life for 15-year-old Irina, who immigrates to Israel from a small
city in Ukraine. Compounding the challenges of learning a foreign language and finding her place in this strange, new environment are the overwhelming pressures of life in a family struggling to survive. Now imagine if this teen also has a learning disability. Where can she turn for help?

ORT Israel has made it a point of providing support to students like Irina, working hard to help with the many challenges they face. Its Learning Skills Centers offer an intervention plan that addresses the needs of each individual student, working to support them within the mainstream program rather than removing them from the classroom. Using individual study plans and workshops that involve the student’s family and teachers, ORT's Learning Skills Centers focus on improving a student's weaknesses and developing his or her strengths, with the goal of real academic achievement.

Women's American ORT has adopted Learning Skills Centers in three ORT Israel schools—ORT High School in Yeruham, ORT Guttman in Netanya and ORT Kiryat Bialik—as part of its Project Portfolio. Students at these schools often come to ORT with educational deficiencies and disadvantaged backgrounds, resulting in underachievement and lack of self-esteem. Perhaps more importantly, they come to the school with a great deal of hope that here, at last, they will receive the help that has been denied to them elsewhere. And they do.

ORT High School in Yeruham
In the town of Yeruham—part of the "poverty belt" in the south of Israel, with rampant unemployment, drugs and crime—the ORT high school is a special place, serving underachieving students with a special care and commitment.

The program works, and there are numbers to prove it. Since its very first day three years ago, the school has made all possible efforts to advance its students to higher achievements. It earned the Ministry of Education prize for highest growth of students eligible for the bagrut: Before ORT entered Yeruham, only 20 percent of the school's students earned matriculation (graduation) certificates. Once ORT came in, the success rate nearly tripled to 59 percent.

ORT Kiryat Bialik, Kiryat Bialik
With 3,700 students in grades 7 through 12, ORT Kiryat Bialik is the largest school in the State of Israel. Its highly motivated students generally come from supportive families with reasonable financial means. Academic standards at the school reflect the motivation of both staff and students, with high success rates in matriculation exams. (This tradition of excellence extends beyond academics: Kiryat Bialik's teams have been champions in girls' soccer and basketball.)

ORT Kiryat Bialik operates an individual advancement program for students as well as a program for learning-disabled children, which it hopes to continue. Helping special-needs students achieve matriculation translates into their being able to take their place as productive Israeli citizens.

ORT Guttman, Netanya
In a town 18 miles north of Tel Aviv on the road to Haifa, more than 1,500 students study at ORT Guttman in Netanya. Only 4 miles from the Palestinian territories, Netanya, its streets, markets and shopping malls have been a regular target for terrorist attacks since the beginning of the Intifada. The school draws its students from the Kiryat Nordau community and most of its underachieving students come from families at the lower socio-economic levels, many of whom are new or relatively new immigrants.

Contributions to the Learning Skills Center project will allow ORT to:

• Train teachers to teach and evaluate students' abilities;
  Identify students in need, using student records and teacher interviews;
• Create individual assessment and study plans; and
• Hold regular informal meetings and workshops, with Learning Skills Center staff, the student, family members and teachers.