Amid fresh Iran fighting, schools close, workplaces don’t and parents are left scrambling

'Canceling school but keeping economy open is slap in the face'

In March, a State Comptroller’s audit revealed that around 40% of Israeli schools, attended by about 466,000 students, lack adequate access to shelters

By Rossella Tercatin

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Today, 1:19 pm

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Rossella Tercatin is The Times of Israel's archaeology and religions reporter.

On Sunday night, as the Israel Defense Forces announced that they were getting ready for an attack by Iran, the Home Front Command issued new guidelines for the whole country, effective immediately.

According to the guidelines, regular activities can be held in workplaces, provided that a secure space can be reached within the time given by alerts of incoming attacks (which vary by location). When relevant, employers can also ask their employees to work remotely.

Schools and kindergartens, however, were just required to shut down, with no exceptions.

“Tomorrow, there are no classes and no matriculation exams. Schools and educational institutions across the country are closed according to Home Front Command guidelines,” read the laconic X post by Education Minister Yoav Kisch.

The decision left parents once again scrambling for solutions to both work and take care of their children on a moment’s notice.

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“Canceling all the schools while keeping the economy open. Nothing beats the feeling of a slap in the face,” Doron Shabti, founder and director of the Alon Center for Returning to Life, an organization that supports reserve soldiers, wrote in a post on X.

“The way they are behaving is disgraceful,” responded journalist and author Amir Tibon. “The government had two months to learn the lessons from the previous confrontation with Iran and put in place mechanisms to allow educational activities to continue during a renewed escalation. Instead, it did nothing and has once again resorted to the easiest option: burdening parents and punishing children.”

A State Comptroller’s audit, presented to the Knesset Education and Culture Committee in March, revealed that around 40 percent of Israeli schools, attended by about 466,000 students, lack adequate access to shelters. The ministry also did not have data for about half of the kindergartens.

Asked on Monday morning whether some schools will start working remotely and whether there will be a plan for the education system, a spokesperson for the Education Ministry did not immediately respond.

During the last round of the war with Iran, for the first few days, both schools and non-emergency workplaces were shut down (though workers could work from home, and some schools started holding classes remotely independently).

About a week after the hostilities began on February 28, workplaces were allowed to resume regular activities provided that adequate access to shelter was guaranteed.

Some ten days into the war, Kisch announced a plan to gradually reopen some schools with adequate access to shelter for frontal learning in areas considered at lesser risk of attack and classified as such (color-coded yellow) by the Home Front Command.

However, the implementation of the plan kept being postponed. When it took effect in very limited areas of Israel, some cities decided to keep their schools closed despite being allowed to reopen. Nearly all schools in the country only resumed in-person classes after a ceasefire was declared on April 8.

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