Israeli parents rejoiced Thursday morning as nearly 2.5 million children began the 2022-2023 school year after a long, hot, and terrorism-pocked summer.
The “parent holiday” came one day after the Finance Ministry and the Teachers’ Union reached a last-minute agreement that prevented a strike.
A total of 2,496,000 male and female students are entering classes is some 5,440 schools across the country.
Of those, 177,000 children are entering the first grade, 136,000 students are beginning their final year of high school and 290,000 children are entering special education classes, to be taught by Israel’s 218,000 educators.
Israel also has 150,000 gifted students who will receive enrichment classes as well.
For the high school students, Wednesday was a nail-biter to the very last second, when Education Minister Yifat Shasha Biton announced together with Teachers’ Association chairperson Ran Erez that they, too, would start the school year on time, Israel’s Channel N12 News reported.
“Not even one tear!” exclaimed Natalie, a mother in the northeastern Negev city of Arad. “My five-year-old didn’t even look back — he just walked straight into the classroom, headed for his friends, and started playing with a puzzle,” she marveled.
Similar stories were heard from other Israeli parents who were simply relieved their children were happy to return to the classrooms.
Public School Starts in NYC on Sept. 8
Children in New York City are not doing nearly as well, according to a survey of 110 educators carried out by the Educators for Excellence nonprofit organization. That research, released Thursday morning, reported approximately 80 percent of educators said their public school students are in worse emotional and academic shape than before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because academic skills are important when asking a child to write about their feelings, or read about those of others, a school counselor’s task becomes more complicated when those skills are compromised — leading to exacerbated emotional problems.
Special school support services are going to be important in the Big Apple this year because of the residual effects of the pandemic.
The city Department of Education received more than $7 billion in federal stimulus funds, with about $4.4 billion in federal COVID stimulus aid for education that must be spent by FY 2025, according to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
It’s not yet clear how that money will be spent.
