Two months after the educational system shut down in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, school bells will ring for the first time on Sunday morning to mark a gradual return to normal.
Parents of some 450,000 students will receive five hours of peace and quiet on Sunday as students in grades one through three head back to school. Classes will be held five days a week on a limited scale of up to 17 students per classroom. A ministerial committee on the coronavirus on Friday also approved the return of 11th-12th graders to school.
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Students will be required to submit a declaration of health upon their return.
Eleventh and 12th graders will also return to classes; special education classes and at-risk students will fully resume studies. In ultra-Orthodox schools, students in grades 7-12 will all head back to the classroom.
Video: Moshe Ben Simhon, Newsenders, Paz Bar
The remainder of students were expected to go back to school by June 1 and are to continue with remote learning in the meantime.
Meanwhile, preschools, daycare centers, and kindergartens were only expected to reopen on May 10 after an assessment of the situation.
Local authorities, however, were not required to open schools within their jurisdiction on Sunday morning, after the Education Ministry said they had until May 5 at the latest to reopen.
Indeed, numerous cities and local authorities said they would delay a return to classrooms amid growing dissatisfaction over the government's handling of the matter.
Among towns saying they would not open schools Sunday were Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Beersheba, Ramat Hasharon, Bnei Brak, parts of Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh, Rehovot, Safed, Karmiel, Kiryat Malachi and Kiryat Gat.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said: "Our schools and kindergartens are clean and the teams are ready, but we will not go by rules set by people who do not act responsibly.
"I can promise parents that just as we knew how to reopen special education classes we will know how to re-operate the entire municipal education system, but only after we take steps to ensure the children's safety. I am the one who is responsible for them at the end of the day."
Huldai later told Channel 12 News he had "lost faith" in the national authorities who ordered the partial return to school.
'Simply absurd'
Teachers, too, voiced concerns and criticisms of the Education Ministry's guidelines.
"It seems that in order to get the economy back on track they are sacrificing our health and the health of our families," said one first-grade teacher. "They're turning us and the students into the test subjects of Israel. We can't actually maintain these directives in terms of hygiene.
"They're turning us into cops, expecting us to be on guard duty during recesses to make sure the kids don't touch one another. What's more, there are students who suffer from emotional problems, and in the situation that has been created they're being separated from their friends, and the person who ends up teaching them could be a stranger, such as a (newly hired) university student."
Another problem decision-makers have apparently failed to take into account pertains to teachers required to return to work, but with children of their own who must still stay at home.
"It's simply absurd," fumed one first-grade teacher from a large city in central Israel. "The Education Ministry fell asleep at the wheel. They knew that many of the young teachers who teach in elementary school have small children of their own at home. Where did they think these kids would disappear when only schools reopen but not preschools and kindergartens?"
The Education Ministry said in response: "We will provide a response to all the issues that arise from the field, with the aim of creating the best routine possible."
