The people who keep the education system open at all costs go against the Ministry of Education.
"Teaching workers in this wave have become a slave market. We have neither day nor night and the most serious thing is that we are not trusted," says Amir Pony, director of Yad LaBanim School in Petah Tikva.
"We are in dire lack of manpower, we go in to teach ourselves in the classrooms," he adds, "the instructors and supervisors who shower us with instructions are gone, we are left alone. The Ministry of Education comes out every day with new instructions and we have no peace. We can barely produce a normal and sane reality."
Prime Minister Bennett and Ministers Announce: An End to Isolation in the Education System // Photo: GPO
This is a difficult time for school principals, who every day, in complete uncertainty, are supposed to accept our children and take care of educational and emotional gaps and their health.
This weekend we met four elementary school principals whose education is burning, for a conversation about what is happening in schools at the height of the Omicron wave.
Over the weekend, the guidelines also changed, and starting this coming Thursday, a new curriculum will take effect, in which students (also not exempt from isolation - vaccinated or recovering) who have been exposed to a verified patient will not be required to enter isolation.
"Having difficulty producing a normal reality for children."
Learning to zoom, Photo: Liron Moldovan
Students will be required to perform two home antigen tests a week - on Sundays and Wednesdays, before arriving at school.
If a negative result is obtained the child will go to kindergarten or school, but in case of a positive result he will stay at home and will be required for a supervised examination.
If the result is negative - he will return to school, and if positive he will go into five full days of isolation until full recovery.
"Every day that children come to school is a blessing in my eyes," says Dalia Peretz, principal of the Meitar School in Omer.
Dalia Peretz, Photo: Without credit
But until this outline takes effect there is almost a full week, and even then it is not certain that it will solve the distress of teaching staff completely, as there are about 25,000 sick teaching staff, about 5,000 isolated teachers, and more teachers who will have to stay home to care for a sick child.
"You come to uncertainty. You do not know what will happen today," says Orna Sheli, principal of the Yadlin School in Rishon Lezion.
"Living in complete uncertainty. There is a great difficulty in preparation, you have to address teachers, students, parents, administrative staff, and I try to jungle all the time. I feel like I am a firefighter."
My Orna, Photo: No Credit
Peretz adds: "We have a feeling that we are cut off from the field, that we do not hear our voice at the Ministry of Education headquarters. There are people there who may have run schools 20 years ago. I heard data that 2 million students come to educational institutions. ".
She explains that there is chaos and collapse of principals and staff: "There is a lack of staff, and this is not something we have experienced in the past. Extreme absences do not allow school management - of verified teachers or in isolation. More than half of the teaching staff is not found. Those who have a pulse, put in assistants who can not give an academic or emotional answer. Teachers have no moment of rest. Why did not leave 13,000 education assistants recruited in favor of the corona? I guess the reason is financial, and that if we got what we got last year the situation would be much better .
"Last year we passed the corona much better because we divided the classes into capsules in the first place, we had manpower. Today we have no such thing - we have a class teacher, and if the teacher in the classroom can not study. And if the child in isolation would be distance learning. We would like to give it, the students are important to us but we do not have manpower. This year the ministry did not give any support to deal with the corona. We manage to reach him at all. "
"We are being fooled"
According to Pony, principal of Yad LaBanim School, the Ministry of Education does not give principals the mandate to run schools differentially: "Three times a week we change the guidelines, it's like incessant rains, sorry for the expression but dumb us down."
He seems to be talking from the bottom of his heart about the directive that only an inspector of an Ministry of Education can approve the transition of an entire stratum to distance learning: "I as a principal want to decide according to my population, "A crushing teacher. We can no longer talk about learning, we have become predators. The way the education system is run is a certificate of poverty for the State of Israel."
Amir Pony, Photo: Ilan Besor
Safwa Taha is the principal of the Al Zahra School in Kafr Qassem.
He explains that in the Arab sector there is no problem of shortage of manpower and teaching staff, but that he too is fed up with top-down discounts.
"We are flooded with so many landings, learning materials, procedures and documents that I have already stopped counting. It creates a lot of load on the system, flooding the system with learning materials, documents on reducing gaps, but no learning at all."
Unlike the Jewish society where there are the Tishrei holidays, in the Arab sector there was a continuum of learning for four months and it managed to reduce gaps in a good way, but now it is not happening.
Safaha Taha, Photo: No Credit
He said that since the current wave, principals have become the babysitters of the entire system: "If it is the Ministry of Education, the inspectorate, the mayors, the parents - everyone comes with criticism of the principal. If you gave seats to principals give us authority and autonomy. But we are suffocated and not allowed to use it.
Want us to write from today to tomorrow plans to reduce gaps, bride.
Last year we received tremendous resources, this year there are no more resources and no one hears us. "
"Parents called me a Nazi"
It is doubtful whether it will be possible to ignore the attitude towards principals and in many schools the relationship with parents is at a low ebb. "I absorb a lot of fire from my parents," says Orna Sheli. "They are angry that they should be bounced in the middle of the day to take children home for isolation. The book is a student with a green sign while a student who is not exempt from isolation is sent home. They swear, they shout. I'm already absorbed that I'm a Nazi, I live under threats. The Nazi.
"There is a very militant group of vaccine opponents in the city who are not ready to be tested, I found myself begging the mother to do an institutional antigen test for her child after a home test he came out positive and we even offered to take him ourselves. I stand in front so my teachers do not absorb it. "They give us space and we are not heard. We are the soft underbelly and if we abandon there is no way to fight."
"No autonomy"
"Managers work countless hours," adds Dalia Peretz. "We receive countless documents for control. No one really trusts us."
Our meeting in Zum was held in preparation for the Ashmoret Conference for Principals (from the Teachers' Union), which will be held on February 23 and will deal with management and economic innovation in the field of education.
Among others, Education Minister Yifat Shasha Bitton and incoming Director General of the Ministry of Education Dalit Stauber are expected to take part.
But in light of the attitude coming from the Ministry of Education, it is doubtful whether the principals feel innovative.
Pony: "We always think that people are buying us a letter or an advertisement, we are tired of it. We talk about school principals as CEOs of companies.
You have to decide if these are straw companies or high-tech companies.
They will understand this on the day that one of us sits in the position of director general of the ministry and will not land there lieutenants generals who do not understand how the education system works (refers to the appointment of Yigal Slovik by Education Minister Yifat Shasha Bitton, an appointment that ended in jarring tones;
"The salary should be adequate and respectful for the position, then there will also be skilled personnel and not by default."
Ari Steinberg, Photo: Without Credit
The purpose of the Ashmoret Conference for Principals is to empower the directors of educational institutions as CEOs and to provide practical tools to help them turn schools into productive economic units and innovative incubators.
According to Ari Steinberg, CEO of Ashmoret from the Teachers' Union, "We hear the voices of principals from the field and understand the need and importance of managerial independence for them.
The education system is the locomotive that leads the train of the Israeli economy. "
The Ministry of Education responded:
"The ministry considers principals the mainstay of the education system. They deserve all the credit for their dedicated work in ensuring the continuous operation of the education system, in difficult and complex conditions.
"In light of this, the Minister of Education, Yifat Shasha Bitton, is promoting a policy of transferring pedagogical and budgetary powers to schools.
"As for the shortage of manpower - in the immediate phase, the Minister of Education has opened a database of 100 standards for kindergarten teachers to fill a place. These days the ministry is working to provide immediate and long-term solutions and alternatives for school teaching staff.
"With regard to the LPG program, the vast majority of managers have formulated a work plan for the implementation of the budgets in the system.
However, the ministry is attentive to the allegations made in this regard. "
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