Hundreds of thousands of kids head back to preschool, but many stay home

After almost 2 months, daycares and kindergartens reopen with social distancing, but class size limits and lingering compensation issues mean thousands are remaining behind

Hundreds of thousands of children aged 0-6 were returning to kindergartens, supervised daycares and private facilities on Sunday after nearly two months at home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Regulatory caps and class sizes and confusion over procedures to open Israel’s array of private, semi-private and public preschools, daycares and kindergartens meant hundreds of thousands of more youngsters were set to stay at home for at least the next few days.

The opening came as Israel has seen the number of new infections slim down to just a handful per day, and a week after elementary schools opened their doors to grades 1-3.

Starting Sunday, children at public kindergartens will attend in classes of no more than 18, and the majority will attend only three days a week so that the limits can be maintained, meaning that some 250,000 children will stay home for the first part of the week. The set days are rotated on a weekly basis on the grounds that many parents don’t work on Fridays.

Children return to a kindergarten in Jerusalem on May 10, 2020 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The groups of 18 will in turn be divided into groups of no more than nine children, which will be strictly separated within the kindergarten. Parents are not to be allowed to enter kindergartens, with children met at the gate by staff and taken inside.

The Education Ministry has said that attendance is not compulsory.

Staff clean a classroom at Emunah daycare in the city of Modiin on May 7, 2020 (Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)

Some private daycares have decided to postpone opening their gates due to what they see as Health Ministry guidelines that are too difficult to implement, and others have shut their doors for good after weeks of closure.

Nearly 1,000 private daycares will not open Sunday, reportedly due to disagreements over the outline proposed to them for compensation by the Treasury and the Labor Ministry, leaving tens of thousands at home.

Another 40,000 children at government-supervised daycares will stay home for the foreseeable future because class sizes are limited to 17 without any rotation, with priority given to the most in need on the basis of the system used to determine entry.

Children wear protective face masks in Tel Aviv, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

The upcoming holiday of Lag B’Omer on Tuesday has also complicated reopening plans, with the day officially scheduled as a vacation for kindergartens and schools, potentially forcing some parents trying to resume work after almost two months of shut down schools to take more time off.

Some municipalities, including Jerusalem, Givatayim, Herzliya and Ra’anana, have said that kindergartens under their jurisdiction would remain open and that the salaries of anyone working would be covered by city hall, Channel 13 news reported.

Israeli children wearing face masks make their way to school in Moshav Yashresh, on May 3, 2020 (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

Parents have also been pushing for a swift resumption of afterschool programs for kindergarten through 2nd grade. An agreement between the Treasury, local councils and the Education Ministry reached Friday to fund the programs, though it is not expected to actually reopen for a number of days.

Schools were among the first institutions to shut down in mid-March, a move that was quickly followed by stricter measures that brought the economy to a virtual standstill and forced many to remain at home as the country sought to prevent a large outbreak of COVID-19.

The director-general of the Education Ministry said Saturday that 4th grade through 6th grade could return to school in another week and all students within three weeks, if Sunday’s reopening of kindergartens is successful and there is no increase in infection rates.

“We are gradually moving step by step. This week, elementary schools, 11th and 12th grade, [classes for] special education and at-risk youth were opened. We will open the kindergartens and after school programs this week. And immediately, if there is no glitch, we will move on to grades four through 10, and then look at the situation for the summer vacation,” Shmuel Abuav told Channel 13 news.

Shmuel Abuav of the Education Ministry speaks at the 16th annual Jerusalem Conference of the ‘Besheva’ group, on February 11, 2019 (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Grades 1-3 and 11-12 returned to school last week with smaller classes and strict health procedures.

Schools will likely have to rotate attendance as more grades resume classes, subject to government approval, as they do not have enough classroom space for all students to maintain social distancing at the same time.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he expects all students will return to classes by the end of the month, while universities and colleges are set to reopen on June 14, when all restrictions are set to be lifted if infection numbers stay low.