Sick and isolated teaching staff, teachers who are afraid of getting caught up in the classroom, principals who are confused by the guidelines and teachers' organizations who refuse to teach lessons in zoom - the Ministry of Education does not seem to have solutions to the omicron wave.
The biggest problem is of a shortage of teaching staff, created due to the entry of many of them into isolation following illness or exposure to a verified patient.
As early as yesterday, more than 8,000 teaching staff and education staff were unable to attend school: the number of certified teachers in Corona was 5,610, and the number of teaching staff in isolation was 2,644.
Currently, about 80 percent of teaching staff are exempt from isolation (212,000 out of 265,000).
It is estimated that in the coming days the number of verified and isolated will only increase.
In this situation, principals find it difficult to create a stable system of hours or regular studies, and some classes are sent home to study through the zoom, or lessons are canceled and teachers are brought in by teachers who are not proficient in the field of knowledge.
Home corona tests, Photo: Michael Giladi Ginny
The sick and isolated teachers are joined by other teachers, who are unable to get to work due to the fact that their family members have been infected in Corona and need to be cared for.
Thus, kindergarten teachers or teaching staff who are parents of young children and whose children are infected with the virus, can not leave them alone and are forced to be absent from work.
Last week, many parents were notified that learning would shift to Zoom because family members of one of the teachers became infected with Corona and she needed to stay home and take care of them.
However, the Ministry of Education has no data on the extent of the phenomenon.
Another thing that concerns the teaching staff is that while some come to teach, they are afraid of getting caught up in the corona in the crowded classrooms.
It should be noted that if teachers are vaccinated, the new outline requires them to perform an antigen test whenever they are exposed to a verified patient - and this often happens daily.
This is how the 10th grade teacher and educator in Gush Dan describes the reality: "There is not a day that I do not receive a message that I have been exposed to a verified sick student in one of the classes I teach in. It means I have to leave everything and go for an antigen test "Out of my pocket or to stand in an endless queue of people and wait for a free examination."
She adds of the fear of being infected in crowded classrooms: "Students are sent for an unreliable antigen test, and they are returned after 40 minutes. I am afraid of being in a closed classroom with almost no windows, sometimes I just take them out.
"My feeling is of Russian roulette, when will it get to me. I really try to make sure they wear masks, but it does not always help."
The teacher emphasizes that "I do not want to endanger myself, I have two small children at home and I can not be sick, I just do not feel safe going to school."
It should be noted that the chairman of the teachers' union, Ran Erez, yesterday called on the government to conduct corona tests for teachers at the school.
Students in class with masks // Photo: Yehoshua Yosef // Students in class with masks,
He also demanded the provision of a fourth vaccine for teachers regardless of age, such as medical staff, and charging a green card to students as a condition of entering school.
"It is not possible for the State of Israel to abandon the health of teachers. Teachers are collapsing between tasks and the chaos of the corona and the impossible guidelines."
Yesterday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that antigen tests will be distributed to teaching staff so that they can test themselves - but it is not known when teaching staff with a basic education at all will receive them.
The zoom is for me
Another front that threatens the routine of the education system is the refusal of teachers' organizations to deliver the lessons that take place in the classroom even in zoom, for students who are in isolation, so in practice no distance learning takes place - unless the whole class is sent to isolation.
That is, in a situation where the teacher and some of the students can come to school because they are vaccinated or recovering, then they study in class and the rest of the class (who are not vaccinated and need isolation) stay home without studying at all - which only exacerbates the gaps.
Yaffa Ben-David, secretary general of the Teachers' Union, even demanded a directive for principals that teachers should not be required to transfer the lesson in parallel by placing a camera in the classroom.
According to her, "Many inquiries have been received from teaching staff, according to which supervisors and school principals oblige them to teach students in educational institutions and at the same time broadcast the lesson to students who are at home," she wrote to the director general of the Ministry of Education. "In the High Court, this is an unreasonable burden on teaching staff."
Conflicting guidelines
The new outline also causes quite a bit of confusion among teachers and principals.
For example, in a school in the center of the country, parents were instructed to put their vaccinated children in isolation.
A father of a student who received such a message said: "Principals have the authority to transfer students to distance learning but not to instruct on isolation. A chaotic situation has arisen where on the one hand principals instruct students to enter solitary confinement "The parents are confused and the teachers are facing an impossible situation. The feeling is that the Ministry of Education is helpless."
In addition, the new outline stipulates that vaccinated students who have been exposed to a verified patient can perform a home antigen test and return to the school bench.
But middle school parents were surprised to find that the school principal demanded that their children undergo an institutional antigen test.
This led to resentment on the part of the parents who approached him and threatened to contact the Ministry of Education - which led him to return.
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