On Monday, 2,587,000 students will return to classrooms across Israel as the new school year begins after the summer break. Among them are 180,600 first graders entering school for the first time and 149,000 12th graders beginning their final year. Another 340,000 children will start compulsory kindergarten, and 193,000 pre-kindergarten.
The year opens in 5,807 schools and 21,600 kindergartens nationwide, staffed by 248,000 education workers, including 219,000 teachers, 5,800 principals, and 24,000 kindergarten teachers.
The Education Ministry announced Sunday that the overall shortage of teachers has been reduced dramatically, citing 488 unfilled positions. Just a week ago, the ministry had reported about 1,500 vacancies, while two weeks earlier, revealed an even higher figure—4,254. Yet the deeper problem remains unresolved: about 12,000 teachers lack formal certification or training. The ministry did not release updated data on the scope of this issue.
This year’s return includes 582,000 students in the ultra-Orthodox school system and 579,000 in Arab schools. In addition, 24,000 gifted students and 18,000 “outstanding” students are beginning the year.
In the north, schools will reopen after the security threat that forced evacuations was lifted and relative calm returned. According to ministry figures, about 90 percent of displaced students and 97 percent of teaching staff have rejoined the school system. Still, three elementary schools—in Metula, Kiryat Shmona, and Bezet—will not reopen, and more than 30 kindergartens will remain closed.
In the northern town of Shlomi, 6-year-old triplets Maya, Yagel, and Lian Ben-Shitrit are among the children entering first grade at Ben Zvi Elementary. The siblings have spent the past year and a half under the shadow of rockets, evacuations, and temporary housing. Like hundreds of other children from northern border communities, they received “resilience kits” with games designed to help them express emotions, ease anxiety, and create “islands of normalcy.”
Professor Mooli Lahad, president of the Community Stress Prevention Center, said northern children have endured years of instability—sirens, emergency evacuations, disrupted schooling, and a loss of basic security. The start of school, he said, can be a turning point.
“Simply being able to return to a classroom, to reorganize and adapt to a new environment, is an expression of resilience,” Lahad said. “School must nurture the strengths that have developed—social initiatives, creativity, and opportunities to express feelings in more mature ways.”
The triplets themselves voiced both excitement and lingering fears.
“The best part is being back in Shlomi, the less good part is the rockets and sirens,” Maya said. “I got to live with my grandparents in Kiryat Motzkin, then Jerusalem, then Haifa, then Acre. What makes me happy is being in my room again. I hope I’ll have fun in class and make lots of friends.”
“When there was a siren, Dad came to take us from kindergarten,” Yagel recalled. “We lay on the ground and put our hands over our heads. It was scary. The best thing about being back in Shlomi is our home, the sea, and the pool. I hope I’ll have fun and play with good friends.”
“I’m happy we came home after being away so long,” added Lian, who said she missed the family cat, Lily. “I hope I’ll be nice and have lots of friends.”
Other first graders in Shlomi, like Ariel Tzur, also looked ahead with mixed feelings. “I met new friends in different places, and it was fun in the hotel with Mom. But there were many sirens, which scared me and my friends, and there was no kindergarten.”
At Hofei HaGalil Elementary in Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv, 72 children will enter first grade alongside returning students, many from border communities. Among them is 6-year-old Ariel Eliyahu from Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra. His family has spent the past two years mainly in a hotel in Tiberias and a rented apartment in Nahariya, after being evacuated with tens of thousands of others.
“I really want to go back home to Rosh Hanikra. I miss my friends. I’ll even have a new room,” he said. “We lived in an old house without a safe room, and now it’s being renovated. My parents are still worried about the situation, but we children just want to go home. Sirens don’t scare me. I hope I’ll have fun at school and make lots of friends.”
School principal Sagi Kedar said that before the war, there were 450 students, but about 40 families have since left permanently. “That’s very painful. A quarter of the students now are from evacuated families,” he said. The focus, he added, is to restore routine: “Thanks to the resources we received, we provided social and emotional support for every child. This year, too, evacuated children will get everything they need—from therapy dog programs to anger management and emotional support.”
In the south, schools will also reopen in Gaza border communities, even as fighting continues beyond the fence. In Moshav Yated in the Eshkol regional council, children who were evacuated last year and have since returned will begin school again.
On October 7, several Hamas terrorist squads infiltrated the moshav, some entering through the very gate where children about to start first grade had posed for a photo. Security forces and the local emergency squad fought them off, protecting residents and capturing 10 terrorists.
The community, forced to evacuate to Eilat, returned nearly a year ago. Now its children are returning to school, hoping for stability in a place that has endured so much.