Abba Eban is famously quoted as having said "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" (he is actually often misquoted as having said "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity...", but that is irrelevant right now).
The Israeli Teachers Union can be accused similarly. The Teacher's Union never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
The schools are just getting started now after about 8 weeks off due to Corona (including time that would have been off for Pesach). The back to school effort is staggered and slow, but it is happening.
The school calendar has a vacation day for this Tuesday - Lag B'Omer.
In normal years Lag B'Omer should not be a vacation day, but it traditionally has been. So many people go to Meron to visit and pray by Kever Rashbi. Even if many do not, they are still up late at local bonfires and get-togethers. And even if you would push the kids to go to sleep at a semi-normal time, the teachers already have it set as a vacation day and have always refused to waive that. Lag B'Omer is not normally a vacation day for anybody else, so parents have to work or take a vacation day because the schools are off.
With schools now having been off for so long and the kids educations schedules so far off track, parents were expecting that this Tuesday would be a "normal" school day despite it being Lag B'Omer. School is just getting back after such a trauma and you are going to throw in a pointless vacation day so soon? Don't they need to make up says anyway? There is not even anything to do this Lag B'Omer that justifies the vacation day, as the traditional bonfires, and Meron, have all been banned. It just makes sense to have this Tuesday be a a school day.
Yet the Teachers Union announced that they are not giving up their vacation day and Tuesday there will be no school. Parents are upset but the Teachers Union spokesperson responded that the teachers have not had vacation until now as they have been working by teaching remotely the entire time. Additionally, the summer vacation was shortened by 9 days for the sake of school, making the teachers lose those vacation days as well.
source: Kipa
They do it because they can. It is a ridiculous. Teachers are wonderful, and they worked hard to teach via a technology most of them were not familiar with using methods they were not familiar with. It surely was not easy for them. But honestly, they taught far fewer hours than normal, so saying they worked and taught throughout the Corona crisis is not quite accurate - they did but they only taught a couple of hours a day at most and not a full day of work.
Of course they should not lose a vacation day out of their own pockets, and they should be paid handsomely for the days that they must teach instead of being on vacation, but they should not have the power to thwart the return to school and the kids getting back into a routine and making up the days.
With the country struggling to get back to school and work, this is a decision that should not be in their hands.
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