Six leading kindergarten network directors in Modiin Illit and Beitar Illit sent an urgent letter to Education Minister Yoav Kisch and local mayors, warning that unless the kindergarten teachers’ crisis is solved immediately and fundamentally, the coming school year will not open at all in their networks. The letter says the problem has spread beyond one network and now threatens the entire kindergarten system in those cities.
The signatories, who together oversee hundreds of kindergartens in Modiin Illit and Beitar Illit and thousands nationwide, are Gil David of Ganei Center, Yisrael Goldknopf of Ganei Beit Yaakov, Avraham Maklev of Ganei Etz Hada'at, Yaakov Rosenstein of Ganei Morasha, Yisrael Golomb of Agudat Yisrael’s kindergarten network, and Gila Malakhovsky of Ganei Hahoshen. They wrote, “We are all in the same boat,” and warned that networks that have not yet decided to close now will face the same dead end within a year. If the issue is not resolved, they said, the networks that signed will go on strike and will not open the 5787 school year.
The crisis began in Agudat Yisrael’s kindergarten network, which has already entered layoff procedures involving hundreds of teachers and faces the closure of dozens of branches. It escalated after about 150 veteran kindergarten teachers sent a separate emergency letter to Knesset members and senior government officials, demanding intervention to stop the layoffs and prevent the closure of dozens of kindergartens. They said the cuts are being forced by a long-running problem in Education Ministry policy.
In their letter, the teachers argued that the current budget formula punishes experience, since older and better-trained teachers make the network lose money. They said a teacher with 30 years of experience is paid only at the level of a certified teacher and counted as if she had 16 years of seniority. The teachers said this is a systemic failure that could soon reach other networks as well.
They called for three urgent steps: full funding based on real seniority, education and rank; immediate completion of the budgetary arrangement needed to apply the “Ofek Hadash” reform in kindergarten classes in 5787; and an immediate freeze on the layoffs through a temporary budgetary safety net until a permanent solution is reached.
