This week, parents of children in municipal gardens received a notice that this year the cost of the summer camp in the municipal gardens will be 680 NIS for three weeks, until 14:00 p.m. According to the parents, this is a higher cost than last year and those who will run the summer camp will not be the familiar assistants.
Parents of children in municipal kindergartens received a letter from the municipality in the last few days stating that the cost of a summer camp at a municipal kindergarten from 7:30 am to 14:00 pm will be NIS 680 and that the person who will operate the activity in the kindergartens is the company Mishkal. Up until the current school year, the Neve Yosef Community Center (the Community Community Center), which is responsible for the after-school programs, was the one that ran the camps. This means that until this year at the summer camps, the children met the afternoon workers they are familiar with, and from this year the children will not know the summer camp workers.
The camps, this year, will be held in two cycles on the dates 01/07-21-07 and - 22/07-12/08. You can add NIS 500 per cycle so that the child stays at the camp until 17:00 PM and receives a hot cooked lunch, i.e. 680 + 500 = 1,180. Registration for the camps will open on 27/05.
In the 8st-00rd grades, the school of the great holiday is also operating this year as part of which the children come to the elementary schools between 13:00 and 300:13 at a cost of NIS 00. In schools where a club operates there will also be activities beyond XNUMX:XNUMX.
It should be noted that the camp will have educational and social activities and enrichment in the fields of movement, dance, art and more.
In the previous school year, the parents paid 950 NIS for the afternoon, throughout the year. In July, the parents also paid 950 NIS (the cost of the afternoon) and the children participated in the first two cycles of the summer camps until 17:00 PM. In the previous big holiday (2018) there were 3 summer camps: 01-19/7, 23/07-02/08 and 05-16/08. Parents of children in the afternoons enjoyed a summer camp from 7:30 to 17:00 throughout the month of July at a cost of NIS 950.
A child who was not in Tsharon in the previous school year paid 680 NIS for the first cycle of summer camp, 450 NIS for the second cycle and 450 NIS for the third cycle.
To summarize the price comparison: this year the cost of the summer camp until 21/07 is 1,180 NIS compared to last year when for the entire month of July (including two days in August) the cost was 950 NIS, which means that this is an increase of 230 NIS, which is an increase of 24% from last year's price.
In this context we note that The consumer price index It went up from April 2018 to April 2019 at a rate of only 1%, so it is strange that the Haifa municipality is raising the prices of summer camps so dramatically.
Parents of children in municipal kindergartens claim that this year the summer camps are both more expensive and the children do not know who runs the summer camp. The parents claim that since these are small children, the fact that the summer camp was run by the afternoon workers made it very easy for the children, who easily stayed with the assistants, whom they knew from the school year. Now the camps will be operated by employees, who are not known to the children. Another claim, which is repeated, is that the parents were informed about the changes only in May, two months before the start of the summer camps.
"When I come to pick up my son from Tzaharon, I have to hear from the assistant that she was informed that she has to take halat in the months of July and August," says a mother of two children in municipal kindergartens in Neve Shanan, "Until now the assistants worked at the summer camp and now the contract with the community center has been terminated, and the assistants will not have a job. Obviously, the municipality has every right to decide who to work with, but it hurts for these workers, who do a very good job with the children and the children are used to them, that they will not have an income for two months."
Haifa Municipality's response:
The price of urban summer camps in kindergartens for the summer of 2019, for three weeks, is 1,180 NIS, from 7.30:17.00 a.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.
The price is subsidized, as it was last year and consists of two parts of the day:
- Morning from 7.30:14.00 a.m. to 680:XNUMX p.m. NIS XNUMX.
- from 14.00:17.00 p.m. to 500:XNUMX p.m. NIS XNUMX.
A total of NIS 1,180 from 7.30:17.00 a.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m. for one three-week cycle.
The camps will operate in two cycles of three weeks:
The first cycle will take place between July 1-21.
The second cycle will take place from July 22 to August 12 (with the exception of Tisha B'av).
The company that was chosen to provide summer camp services in the city, was tested according to national parameters and meets all the quality and service criteria for summer camps, which will be fully supervised by the Ministry of Education and the municipality. In addition to the educational content, the children will receive external educational enrichment, 9 enrichment activities in the morning, and 9 enrichment activities in the afternoon, in each cycle.
As mentioned, the price of the summer camp, weighted for 6 weeks, remains the same as last year