Protesting classroom crunch, parents keep kids from school
Students in some 70 cities get day off as parents step up ‘sardine’ demonstration against class sizes swelling to 40 children or more
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Parents in some 70 towns around Israel kept their elementary school-aged children home and held demonstrations outside of schools on Sunday, as they stepped up a long-simmering protest against overcrowding in classrooms.
Protests were held in Herzliya and Holon, with additional demonstrations set to take place in Ramat Hasharon, Jerusalem, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, and Rehovot throughout the day.
Dubbing it the “sardine protest,” parents are demanding the Education Ministry commit to keeping class sizes at 32 students or smaller, after complaining that overcrowding in certain schools has ballooned class sizes to 40 children and larger.
Among the cities where the elementary school strike took place were Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, Rishon Lezion, Modiin-Maccabim-Reut, Bat Yam, Holon, Netanya and several others.
Yitzhak Menachem, the head of the parents committee in Gedera, accused education officials of hoodwinking parents and refusing to implement promised reforms.
“We’re stepping up the protest because we are forced to,” he told the Walla news site.
The strike was organized by the Local Parents Committee, but is also support by the National Parents Committee.
Though Sunday is the third to last day before summer vacation, parents have threatened to keep the strike going until the end of the year and to stymie the opening of the next school year if their demands are not met.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Saturday night that the issue was being taken care of but would take time.
“The strike is not the way. The crunch is real, but classes will go on as normal,” he told Channel 2. “The issue of overcrowding is on my desk and I will take care of it.”
Sunday will also see politicians take up the issue, as the Ministerial Committee for Legislation votes on whether to support a bill enshrining the 32 student per classroom cap in law.
The proposal has been brought up in the Knesset nine times before, but has never passed, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.
The Times of Israel Community.