As Israel prepares to send elementary school students in the first to fourth grades back to the classroom, the Health Ministry is urging some 60,000 public school teachers nationwide to be tested for coronavirus.
The testing will be carried out at sites run by the IDF Home Front Command, or at community clinics.
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The Health Ministry stressed that classes or schools could be opened before all test results were in, and that staff being tested did not have to quarantine themselves until the results were available. In addition, anyone who has already contracted coronavirus and recovered does not need to be re-tested.
"The Health Ministry, the Education Ministry, and the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel have invested a lot of planning into improving the back-to-school framework, to ensure that children and staff can be brought back to school safely and pedagogical activity can continue while we safeguard the public's health," officials said.
However, Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee MK Ram Shefa, voiced criticism on Tuesday of a proposed plan for open-air classes submitted by the health and education ministries. Shefa said that his committee would not approve it.
"The intention to allow students and teachers to meet outside is welcome, but it's not clear to me how the restriction of up to 15 students [in a group] and instructions to keep groups 100 meters [yards] apart can be upheld, when the general public is allowed to gather in groups of up to 20 people," Shefa said.
"In the meeting, no expert managed to explain the choice of these numbers in a way that put our minds at ease, so the Education Committee will not approve these measures," the chairman said.
Shefa said he was calling on the Corona cabinet to change the regulations to allow for groups of up to 19 students for every one teacher, with the distance between groups reduced to 50 meters.
Health Ministry Yuli Edelstein on Tuesday addressed the decision to start reopening schools and said, "first and second-graders will, unfortunately, only be in school for some of the time. I hope that some local authorities will expand the framework."
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