Ministry of Education announces controversial teacher will be suspended from her role of organizing Holocaust trips to Poland.
By DANIELLE ZIRIKFAR SABA 370(photo credit: Kfar Saba Municipality)
The Ministry of Education announced on Wednesday that the teacher who sparked the recent controversy at Rabin High School in Kfar Saba will be suspended from her role as organizer of the 12th-grade Holocaust- education trip to Poland, scheduled for later this year.The incident, which occurred on Sunday, made headlines when a teacher accidentally emailed seniors at the school an internal document containing disparaging comments written about them by their teachers.Among the remarks, students were characterized as “liar,” “not so smart,” “speaks like a four-year-old,” “boy crazy,” as well as “grown baby” and “sick.”Students expressed their shock and anger with the document as they arrived to school on Monday morning, carrying signs with what was said about them in protest.“I see this event with much gravity,” executive director of the ministry Dalit Stauber said in a statement. “This was a significant failure and those responsible will be held responsible.”Under Stauber’s instructions, the teacher will undergo a disciplinary investigation and the school principal was summoned to a meeting with the district director to “clarify the matter.”In addition, the ministry has appointed a professional team to manage the crisis at the institution and made psychological assistance available to students.The school principal has issued a letter of apology to students and parents.Teachers were also asked to meet with them in order to apologize to each of them in person.Furthermore, the ministry said it will provide school principals with clear guidelines on how to collect educational information within a school in the appropriate manner. The school supervisor and a district counselor will hold conversations with the teachers involved in the incident to prevent such occurrences in the future.
“It broke the trust with my teachers,” one of the students told Ynet on Monday. “I never believed that they could write something like that.I was surprised, in a bad way.”Yesh Atid MK and chairwoman of the lobby for the integration of children with disabilities in the education system Karin Elharar also commented on the issue earlier this week, calling the comments “abusive, insulting and dismissive.”“This is not about a human error from a teacher who accidentally sent the email. This is about the fact that the document should not have been created in the first place,” she said.“How can we ask the students to behave in an appropriate manner, if teachers show an example of unworthy acts?” Elharar added.