Teachers Organization Chairman Ran Erez responded to the government's plan to begin the 2020-2021 school year, promising that school would begin "and whatever will be, will be."
In an interview with 103 FM Radio, Erez pointed out the problems with the plan, but said that "in secondary schools, we will begin the school year in any way possible."
"There are over 150,000 students in secondary schools who do not have computers, they still don't have answers."
Erez also pointed out that "the second problem is that of manpower. They want students to come to school twice a week, and study the rest of the week at home. Who will teach them twice a week? The young teachers, there's a lot of logistics that don't have answers."
Meanwhile, Yaffa Ben-David, chief of Israel's Teachers' Union, told the Knesset's Education, Culture, and Sports Committee Wednesday morning that the Health Ministry's directives for the new school year will be impossible to implement.
"The back-to-school plan released by the Education Ministry is very vague and all-encompassing," she said. "I'm worried about the public's pressure on the Health Ministry, which changes its decisions all the time, and the ones who suffer from this are the teachers and the students."
"Many teachers and students were infected, and if you're going to claim that there aren't any infections, we'd like you to bring some proof.
"We want another person [in the classroom] to help in grades 1 and 2. In addition, we need to reduce the subjects taught, because during this period it is impossible to teach all of the subjects. To that end, give full autonomy to school administrators to decide what to teach and who will be added to reinforce the system. Don't impose programs on the administrators and tell them to follow them, that's not autonomy. The Health Ministry is giving clear directives, but they are impossible to implement, and then afterwards they say that educators aren't competent. How in G-d's name can you maintain a distance of six feet and ensure that the kids are wearing masks all day long?"
Earlier this week, Education Minister Yoav Galant's (Likud) plan was approved by the Israeli government. Under the plan, children in preschool through second grade would attend school as usual, and students in grades 3-4 would attend school full-time but be split into groups of up to 18 students. Students from grades 5-12 would incorporate distance learning, as well as learning in the classroom at least two days each week.