Parents wait with their children to enter their number one school in Sderot, as it reopens due to ease of restrictions that prevent the spread of coronavirus in Israel on May 3, 2020.
Amir Cohen / Reuters
On the first day back to school in early May, Lisa Namdar-Kaufman, mother of two children from the Israeli city of Pardes Chana, felt that appropriate precautions against the spread of coronavirus were being ignored.
“They did all sorts of bonding with the kids, all sorts of climbing around others without a mask, and getting on most others without the masks.”
“They sent us pictures of a sixth-grade elegance at the end of the day to show us,” look how fun it is to be back at school,” he said. “They did all sorts of bonding exercises with the kids, all sorts of climbing around others without their masks, and getting on most others without the masks.”
That’s not all: “They made a board with nails on which to hang their masks, one on the most sensitive of the others,” he says. “I’m livid and scared, frankly.
As schools around the global plan for the fall semester, many are in Israel, where COVID-19 epidemics spread through the school formula after a hasty reopening, as an example of what can happen wrong.
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But until early May, Israel had one of the lowest coronavirus rates in the world. The new instances had fallen to double digits according to the day and fewer than 250 other people had died from the virus across the country. After months of joining largely in strict lockout measures, the Israeli public welcomed a well-done task in a position to resume a general life.
When schools began reopening in early May, a handful of notes were sent to elegance in small groups, or “capsules,” to minimize the option of coronavirus shoots. In a wonderful move, the government announced that all grades would return and removed restrictions on elegant sizes.
Rebecca Nussbaum, a high school instructor in Jerusalem, said she and her colleagues had a weekend to prepare for the wave of new students.
“To everyone’s surprise at school, on Thursday night before returning on Sunday, we were in a staff assembly on how pills work; it was nine o’clock at night and a report was transmitted that the schools were opening normally.”
“To everyone’s surprise at school, on Thursday night before we returned on Sunday, we were in a staff assembly on how the pills work; it was nine o’clock at night and a report was published that the schools were opening normally.
Nussbaum continued, “We didn’t feel we had enough time to prepare for this, to make sure the school was well supplied so that many students would all come back at once.”
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The coronavirus temporarily spread to the school system. Tens of thousands of academics were quarantined while their peers tested positive.
The first and largest epidemic occurred at the mythical Gymnasia Rehavia, a school and high school in Jerusalem. There, 116 schoolchildren and 14 teachers were infected. The school’s alumni come with prominent Israeli politicians, authors and public figures.
The Department of Education issued a complex set of needs and recommendations to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but it is largely the discretion of directors and teachers to enforce those rules.
Namdar-Kaufman sympathized with the educators and said the orders given were unrealistic.
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“The kind of social estrangement they asked for was only with the resources available. So, because they won a list, the professor said it was a very long and complicated list of recommendations, needs, the message was: “We know you can’t do that, then do anything.” It wasn’t serious, and they didn’t take it seriously accordingly, so everyone chose what they felt comfortable.”
Looking ahead, Nussbaum and Namdar-Kaufman are more positive about the fall semester. Summer gives teachers the opportunity to do a much deeper preparation.
“I think with transparent rules and enough time to physically prepare schools and teachers, it may be more effective. But I think keeping students in small teams is more educational and more in terms of health.
“I think with transparent rules and enough time to physically prepare schools and teachers, it can be more effective. But I think keeping students in small teams is more educational and more health promoter,” Nussbaum said.
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Most schools don’t have the infrastructure to give the capsule their own classroom, meaning students will likely have a combination of face-to-face and distance learning in the next semester.
Some critics have said that the reopening of schools has caused the wave of coronavirus that has spread across the country. In recent weeks, Israel has recorded more than 1,500 new cases according to the day. But Yohanan Plesner, a former member of parliament and current director of the Israel Democracy Institute, believes the evidence is transparent enough to make this claim.
“The non-unusual wisdom that the only resolution that made a difference in terms of meetings was when, in June, it was permissible to open occasions, weddings, etc. To allow occasions for up to 250 people, and some occasions were much bigger,” he said. “So, if the school system, if there was a resolution that we could simply pass and relax, would be the resolution to allow for large-scale occasions.
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