High schools to open on time as teachers, Treasury reach deal to avert strike

11th-hour agreement will give educators extra NIS 2,000 a month, eventually, and drop some small-group teaching hours in favor of classroom lecturing

With mere hours to go before the start of the 2023-2024 academic year on Friday, high school teachers and government officials reached a deal to bump up salaries, avoiding a threatened strike that would have delayed classes for a second year in a row.

“School is on tomorrow, high schoolers,” celebrated Education Minister Yoav Kisch, who had pushed marathon talks to bring the Secondary School Teachers’ Association and Finance Ministry together as the strike loomed.

Under the deal, teachers will receive raises totaling NIS 2,000 ($525) a month, as well as an extra 1.35 percent into a special pension fund. The raises will be distributed gradually over the next four years, with teachers initially receiving only an extra NIS 800 ($210) monthly.

Teachers will also drop three hours of small-group instruction a week, but will add one hour of classroom lecturing, a move that the sides claimed would make up for a shortage of several thousand teachers nationwide.

The agreement also includes a clause committing teachers to not go on strike over salary disputes for at least 6 and a half years, Haaretz reported.

Teachers union boss Ran Erez celebrated the deal as an “awesome achievement” for teachers in a note to members of his union, which represents secondary school instructors.

Minister of Education Yoav Kisch at the education system’s war room in Jerusalem, ahead of the first day of school, August 31, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“I’m happy to report to you that we reached agreements on every important point in our negotiations with the Treasury,” he wrote to them.

“I’m very happy that you are very happy,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Erez after talks wrapped up, according to the premier’s spokesperson. “I’m also happy to hear the strike was avoided, and that we solved this and are starting the school year with everyone, God-willing.”

Talks over the labor dispute had made little progress over the summer, but began to ramp up as the September 1 start date for the school year approached. Nonetheless, they came down to the wire, with most parents and schools already making alternate plans when the agreement was announced.

Secondary School Teachers’ Association chair Ran Erez during a press conference in Tel Aviv on May 23, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

It marked the second year in a row that a strike was averted at the last moment, after a separate teachers union that represents elementary and middle school teachers nearly delayed the start of the 2022-2023 school year before the Treasury agreed to raise their salaries too.

Despite the deal opening schools, a number of issues remain unresolved, including demands for more vacation time. Also unaddressed is how the education system will absorb the loss of three hours of personalized instruction, or make up for the rest of the staffing shortfall.