When Israel occupied the eastern half of Jerusalem after the 1967 war — an event termed the Naksa, meaning "setback," by Palestinians — it took control of the education system for thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites. Since then, Israel's policies for education in East Jerusalem have been based in a colonialist logic reminiscent of the British Mandate era in Palestine. Three key ways Israel maintained colonial education policies in East Jerusalem in its first decade of occupation from 1967-1977 were through its differentiation of East Jerusalemites from its other occupied Palestinian populations, its changes to Palestinian curriculum, and its treatment of Palestinian secondary school students. These policies have continued to affect East Jerusalem education until today, manifesting in curricular censorship, high rates of private schooling, and major classroom shortages. However, despite this repression and underinvestment from the occupying power, many Palestinian individuals and organizations were able to assert their own educational goals in East Jerusalem. This paper investigates the complicated interplay of colonial policies, community resistance, and individual decision-making that shaped educational outcomes for East Jerusalemite school graduates in the first ten years of the occupation. I draw on oral history interviews with former Jerusalemite students and teachers, Palestinians memoirs, Jerusalem private schools archives, and articles on education by Palestinian scholars to argue that members of the Palestinian Jerusalemite community were often able to circumvent Israeli education policies through grassroots initiatives. This historical analysis of the lived education experiences formed via the contentious relationship between Palestinian-led initiatives, Israeli policies, and foreign education aid has larger implications for how Palestinian education fits into a wider history of colonialism's effects on education. Current scholarship on Palestinian education in East Jerusalem immediately after the Israeli occupation mostly consists of education reports that focus on the problems wrought by Israeli policies and include normative analyses for how to fix those issues today. However, I argue that in order to understand that historical period, Palestinian education must be studied within a framework of education under colonial rule rather than a prescriptive policy lens. My paper thus incorporates a more holistic exploration of the history of educational experiences in East Jerusalem to understand how some local initiatives were able to counter the goals of a colonial power. This paper thus challenges the narrative of pure educational stagnation common to summaries of the 1967-1977 period by centering the persistence of Palestinians in the education sphere in the face of occupation.