A Principal With a Passion

“When I first came here,” recounts Eti Zabary, the bubbly 54-year-old principal of AMIT Kennedy junior and senior high school in Acco, “I found broken chairs and tables, black-stained floors, rooms with no windows and pools of rain in classrooms and corridors.” This was in 2013. Within a couple of years, Zabary succeeded in transforming the run-down premises into an attractive educational institution that is fast gaining recognition in the Western Galilee. As she shows me round the school, she is clearly proud of her achievements, pointing to a former garbage dump now transformed into a pretty courtyard with plants and decorative pots, brightly painted classrooms, curvy green tables that can be used individually or joined together for group work, and attractive work-stands equipped with computers. There is also new flooring, air conditioning, and a large wall-to-wall carpeted music room.