After-school nightmare: How Jerusalem's chaperone shortage became a crisis

Parents in Jerusalem looking forward to the start of the school year were met with a rude awakening on September 1. Aside from the usual teachers’ strikes, a problem arose from a different source, and it has caused huge problems for the city’s residents: the tzaharonim, or after-school programs.

Here’s how it works.

In public schools – specifically daycares, kindergartens, and the lower grades of elementary schools – the tzaharon is the last two hours of the school day. This is when teachers leave, and the tzaharon chaperones come to watch over the children and give them lunch.

Chaperones are the only source of afternoon supervision for children in daycare and kindergarten; the school day would be much shorter without them. Children in kindergartens finish school at 2 p.m., which is when the preschool teacher, or ganenet, leaves. However, the kids remain in school for two hours longer, not with a teacher or daycare worker but with chaperones.

Without these chaperones, parents would have to pick up their children from school hours earlier, which would disrupt their workday.

That is what happened during the first week of this school year, when the tzaharon chaperones simply didn’t show up. Parents scrambled to pick up their children, who were not given lunch. This angered many Jerusalem parents, whose routines were upended and who are now grappling with frustration at a system that has provided them with few answers.

“My daughter came home from gan [kindergarten and pre-school] ravenous,” Dr. David Leitner-Cohen, a father of two who was relying on public daycare and kindergartens for the first time, told In Jerusalem. “The next day, the gan said there was still no tzaharon but there was food, but they weren’t allowed to stay in the gan for it, so they had to go to a nearby park to eat it.”

The fact that there was food but no chaperones made the situation even more confusing. As Leitner-Cohen explained, he was informed that he would be refunded for the days of the month when there was no tzaharon. However, it was unclear if he would be charged for the food, since the tzaharon provides it.

“Do we still have to pay the full fee if the food comes?” he asked. “We don’t know. They won’t tell us.”

Understanding the after-school program for Israeli children

SO WHAT exactly happened, and why does this system exist in the first place?

The short school day led to the implementation of the tzaharon system. In 1997, the Knesset passed the Long School Days Law, which should have extended school days to eight hours. However, it was only partially implemented and never properly rolled out to younger children. As a result, when the teachers or kindergarten staff leave at 1:30 to 2 p.m., the children would be required to leave. To accommodate the working parents, many municipalities, including Jerusalem, instituted tzaharonim. Parents pay a fee for this service, with the price varying from city to city.

However, this year’s transition of authority over the tzaharonim from the municipality to an organization called Amutat Lavy exacerbated the problems.

Led by Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Hagit Moshe, Amutat Lavy was supposed to spearhead the logistics of this program. Instead, many claim it has caused even more problems.

Amutat Lavy has been criticized for being disorganized, as well as opaque regarding parents’ concerns.

It also announced a rise in the cost for tzaharonim at the start of the school year. That itself may have been a symptom of a larger issue: the nationwide rise in tzaharonim costs due to wartime budget cuts. At the end of August, media outlets reported that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich cut subsidies for tzaharonim by NIS 250 million, with parents expected to pay monthly fees of up to NIS 1,500 per child in some parts of the country. Jerusalem, too, was affected.

However, the primary cause of the tzaharon chaperones’ strike or departure appears to be interference with seniority. Prior to this, many supervisors, in accordance with their rights, anticipated salary increases upon accepting their positions. However, Amutat Lavy reportedly refused to recognize established seniority, which caused many to quit.

According to information cited by the newspaper Makor Rishon, Amutat Lavy was expecting a surplus of staff this year. Instead, there was a critical shortage.

Speaking to KAN News, tzaharon chaperone Edna Sebag criticized the municipality for blaming the workers rather than the disorganized, “dysfunctional” system. “Is it any wonder they [chaperones] don’t want to go back?” Sebag asked.

Also speaking to KAN was Dana Katzir of the Koah La’ovdim (“Power to the Workers”) labor union. She criticized the municipality’s response to the worker shortage, noting that “each year, about 300 [chaperones] leave the tzaharonim. This year, we fear a massive wave of resignations due to a violation of the terms of employment and agreement signed before the transition [of the tzaharonim] to Lavy.”

The result of this disorganization was set to be a large demonstration of parents and children outside the municipality building on Sunday, September 8. However, at the last second, it was called off. It was announced that the municipality and parents had reached an agreement, that tzaharonim would return to schools that week.

But to the anger of many parents, that didn’t happen. Many tzaharonim never opened, forcing parents to rush back to pick up their children, and nobody notified them in advance as to whether there would even be any chaperones at the gan or school.

SPEAKING TO Makor Rishon, a kindergarten teacher in the city explained that parents were told there would be a tzaharon at school. However, the municipality told the teacher that they were unsure about the tzaharon, as there was no staff available.

“When will I know? Probably at 2 p.m., when we’ll see if anyone comes or if I’ll have to stay with a group of children,” the teacher told Makor Rishon. The teacher further noted that the municipality explained that the responsibility to inform parents that there would be no tzaharon was with Amutat Lavy.

The tzaharonim that did end up happening were also criticized. According to complaints from parents, Amutat Lavy was forced to fill up its staffing shortage with other employees, including office workers and members of the accounting department. Some parents further claim that they spoke to these stand-in chaperones, who told them they would be filling in only until the end of the week.

“Is it even legal for Amutat Lavy employees from their offices to come look after the children? Without any training? Without knowledge of CPR or... of how to manage an emergency?” parents said in a statement.

Another recurring issue concerns food. According to media reports and claims by parents, some tzaharonim in the city this past week didn’t supply any food. In addition, children with food allergies sometimes get no food at all.

“They promised that chaperones would come,” one parent of a child from a kindergarten in the Gilo neighborhood said, according to MyNet Jerusalem. “There was no food. We had to order pizza at our own expense.”

A parent from the Beit Hakerem neighborhood told MyNet Jerusalem, “The food didn’t arrive until 3 p.m., and the chaperone who came didn’t speak a word of Hebrew. She only spoke with the children in Arabic.”

THE MUNICIPALITY said in a statement that they were working to fix the gaps in the system.

Speaking with Kol Ha’ir, Deputy Mayor Moshe admitted that the initial transition has been difficult and that there have been problems with the tzaharon system for years, but she also put the blame on “workers who, in what appears to be an organized effort, inform us just before the start of the work that they won’t be coming in.”

Moshe added that they will not be hiring chaperones under the age of 18. However, despite the problems with Amutat Lavy’s first year holding the reins of the tzaharonim, she believes everything will still work out in the end.

Yet many parents are still furious – about the tzaharon crisis in the first place, which caused many of them to pick up their children before the end of the workday ends, as well as about how Amutat Lavy has been handling the situation. They are now calling for help from lawmakers, as well as considering a class action lawsuit.

It remains to be seen what will happen next week.

In Jerusalem reached out to Amutat Lavy for comment but had not received a response by print time.■