The new "yellow" air threat level introduced in Kyiv in early September did not provide schools with separate instructions — the same algorithm applies as before: classes are interrupted, and everyone goes to shelter. This was explained by the education ombudsperson Nadiya Leshchyk, clarifying, among other things, whether children are obligated to attend school on such a day.
The answer is unambiguous: no. According to Leshchyk, neither students nor teachers can be forcibly removed from a safe place and sent to an educational institution while the threat persists. However, this raises a practical dilemma that the ombudsperson addresses directly to parents.
Parents must additionally assess whether a teacher is present and whether it is possible to accept the child in the shelter.
In other words, the decision to "take or not take" a child to school at the "yellow" level is placed on the family — and depends not on the official alert status, but on the specific logistics: whether there is someone in the shelter to receive the child, whether the educational process continues there.
What to do if an alert occurs on the way
A separate issue concerns children who are being driven to school at the moment the "yellow" level is announced. Here Leshchyk suggests following the experience of frontline cities, where this problem is already not theoretical.
In Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, mobile shelters are installed at stops and in places where large crowds gather — precisely for cases when an alert catches a person not at home and not at school, but in the middle of their route. The ombudsperson advises communities with elevated security risks to work out safe routes to schools in advance and consider installing similar structures.
Formally, changes in threat levels are primarily a matter of notification: a differentiated signal now conveys not only the fact of danger, but also its type and level. But for a school, this means one thing: a clearer signal does not eliminate the need to have a plan for cases when there is no shelter at hand — neither at home, nor on the way, nor at a school desk.
