All around the world, children and adults alike are headed back to school! The ongoing coronavirus pandemic means many schools will be incorporating a virtual element into their curricula (and in some cases, moving entirely online). While navigating this new reality is certainly challenging, ROIers around the world are stepping up to create resources and opportunities to make the school year fun, meaningful, and accessible for all ages.

Here, in no particular order, are five ROIers that are reshaping the 2020 school year:

1. Menachem Bombach
   
   Menachem Bombach founded Torah Academy, Israel’s first Hassidic high school that integrates secular studies into its curriculum. Following a similar model, he’s taking classes online: his new initiative, Eshkolot, is a virtual school that teaches secular subjects in an entirely Ultra-Orthodox environment, preparing its students for further academic studies. Eshkolot is geared toward the Hassidic community and offers online courses in English, math and physics.
    
2. Moti Taubin
   
   Through his work as the Head of Strategy at the Israeli Ministry of Education, Moti Taubin was the leading force behind Learn with Confidence, a new resource that provides tools to teachers to teach effectively and to principals to manage educational institutions in the age of corona. Note: this content is in Hebrew.
    
3. Dina Buchbinder Auron
   
   Dina Buchbinder Auron, founder of Education for Sharing, a non-profit whose mission is “to form better global citizens through the power of play,” had to shift her organization from mostly in-person activity to entirely online. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. This shift has given way to a new project aimed at training teachers how to teach digitally; a catalog of games that promote health and safety (in coordination with the Mexican Education Minister); and a video campaign to support teachers and families, which has reached more than 2.7 million children, teachers, and parents worldwide.
    
4. Kfir Damari
   
   Kfir Damari co-founded SpaceIL, “awakening the imaginations of Israelis and Jews” around the world in their race to take Israel to the moon. For this year’s return to school, they’ve created some space-themed backgrounds to make your virtual classroom feel out of this world!
    
5. Yossi Hayut
   
   As the world moves more online, having digital skills is more important than ever. Together with his team, Yossi Hayut, the Head of Education at Wix, launched a new, free program, Creators of the Future, that lets students (ages 16-18) from the US and UK explore topics around web creation and web design in a five-week, once-a-week, interactive online program.

We love to watch ROIers turn their passion into action! Kol Hakavod!