This coming Wednesday it is supposed to happen: 2.4 million students in the education system are expected to return to school, as every year on September 1st.
This is a total of a few school days until Rosh Hashanah.
But the uncontrolled return to educational institutions carries among tens of thousands of parents the fear that exposure to a verified patient at school will put the children in isolation on the eve of the holiday.
This means that tens of thousands of students will sit alone in their room on the eve of the holiday.
Last weekend, Ilana Gens, head of the public health staff at the Knesset's Constitution Committee, said that "in the coming days there will be another assessment of the situation regarding the opening of the school year. We do want to try to open a school year as a series." Starting today, principals will let parents and students in eighth-twelfth grades in red cities announce which of them will not start the school year in the classroom due to immunization rates below 70 percent in the classroom. The data system made available to the principals works so that each principal sees the extent of the vaccinated in each grade he has.This is the general proportion of the vaccinated students without specifying the student's name, i.e. anonymously.
The circumstances created - the vaccines, the green label for recovering students - and the decisions made by the Corona Cabinet, in fact create two separate education systems: one for recovering or vaccinated students who do not need isolation and can attend schools regularly (except in the case of a total closure), Non-isolation students, who may find themselves (along with their parents) in a long and discouraging isolation routine.
Studies in Zoom, Archive, Liron Moldovan
Now the differences between the older age groups, those who can get vaccinated (12 and older) in middle and high schools, are also sharpening, compared to elementary school and kindergarten students.
The first group is a group many of which are vaccinated in the second dose, and many others have been vaccinated in the last two weeks.
This means that in October these students will be able to return to classrooms in full - with the schools meeting the threshold of 70 percent of vaccinated students in the classroom as a condition for frontal learning.
On the other hand, the biggest problem of both the system and the parents is the students in kindergartens (ages 6-3) and in elementary schools.
These students cannot be vaccinated, and there is a small group of students who have fallen ill - and recovered.
These students are exempt from isolation if they are exposed to a verified patient in the class (teacher, assistant or sick student), and can return to continue to attend school.
Here will be a big challenge for the system - if you manage to keep these students in frontal learning and meet them daily, or they will pay the price of lack of resources in the system and have to sit at home, miss school altogether or go back to learning from the zoom.
Recall that the ambition was to perform 1.6 million serological tests to detect antibodies, but the operation was stopped almost completely after it did not yield results.
"Trust the parents"
At the beginning of the year, students are also supposed to be vaccinated in schools, during school hours. As revealed in "Israel Today", at least 50 parental permits will be required to order a vaccine mobile, and the person who will be in charge of this is the school principal. At the moment, this is an operation with many factors, including the Ministries of Education and Health and the Home Front Command, along with private companies that won the tender.
It is not yet known what the extent of vaccination will be on a daily basis, and the capacity will be determined by the Ministry of Health according to its capabilities, taking into account additional vaccination complexes in each local authority and in accordance with the requirement from schools.
One of the interesting issues is what will happen to students who want to get vaccinated at school but their parents oppose it - how can the principals know if the student has not forged his parents' permission to get vaccinated?
The Ministry of Education stated that "the education system educates in the light of values of trust, integrity and fairness, and it trusts the students and parents to show responsibility and cooperate."
By the way, it should be emphasized that there is no prohibition against a parent accompanying his child during the vaccination, in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and the presentation of a green label.
In case one of the students feels bad - they will call one of his parents and ask to come and pick him up.
The Ministry of Health has admitted that the individual planning of vaccines in schools will be completed in the coming days, with several companies winning the vaccine tender.
The allocation of vaccine mobility will be adjusted to the daily demand, and 50 warehouse teams are expected each day.
And the question also arises what will happen if vaccine opponents come to school and try to interfere with vaccines? The Ministry of Education states that vaccinations will take place in the compound inside the school, and that admission to an educational institution is in accordance with the CEO's circular and lifestyles, and therefore - also routinely - no entry to an external entity that has not been approved. And there was no objection, quite the contrary.