Municipal leaders reject Education Ministry plan for grades 4-10 to return to school

Mayors and local council chiefs are telling Prime Minister Netanyahu that grades 4 through 10 will not return to schools under their jurisdiction next week in accordance with an Education Ministry plan.

The plan, released yesterday, calls for a limited resumption of classes to prevent spreading of the coronavirus, with students in 4th-6th grades only at school for five to six hours a week and 7th-10th graders at school for two to three days a week.

“The return plan doesn’t constitute a return to school and doesn’t provide a solution to anyone,” the heads of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel and the Regional Council Center write in a letter to Netanyahu. “As long as the [education] system doesn’t return to full operations we cannot open educational institutions for additional grades.”