The Education Ministry is working to bring all students back to school next week, but no comprehensive solution has yet been found.
Currently, students in grades 1-3 attend school five days a week, from Sunday through Thursday. However, if grades 4-6 returned to school next week as per the Education Ministry's plan, grades 1-3 would attend only Sunday through Wednesday.
According to Israel Hayom, one option is that the Health Ministry approve enlarging the number of students in each group, so that more students can return to school.
Another option is that students in grades 4-6 will return to school only on Fridays but continue distance learning the other five days each week, allowing students in grades 1-3 to continue studying in school five days a week.
However, none of the plans have been approved yet, and students in grades 7-10 are still distance learning as well, and no plan has been formulated to allow them to return to school.
Yossi Lavov, chairman of the Parents' Committee at the Arlozorov School in Kiryat Haim and father of two girls, one of whom is in grade four, told Israel Hayom: "For two months the education system has been shut down, and the top officials in the Education Ministry still haven't formulated an organized plan to allow the rest of the students to go back to school."
"This is a really sad thing. There was so much time to think of creative solutions, and here they're leaving children with a very large academic 'hole.' They're doing experiments on children here, and in addition, their teachers are required to teach grades 1-3, who attend school, so the distance learning isn't effective, either.
"It's unthinkable that they reopen malls but not schools."
Meanwhile, preschools, kindergartens, and government-subsidized daycares reopened on Sunday, allowing children ages 0-6 to return. In the daycares, groups were limited to 17 children each, leaving between 30-40% of parents without childcare. In preschools and kindergartens, children were divided into two groups, each of which attends for two or three days each week.