Ukraine’s children begin school year with balloons and missiles overhead
Balloons drifted over a schoolyard in Kyiv’s Obolon district on Tuesday, hours after Russian ballistic missiles shook the Ukrainian capital overnight.
Bleary-eyed parents and children in festive outfits gathered to music, determined to celebrate the traditional start of the school year.
But within seconds, an air raid alert sounded, and the crowd dispersed. Children’s laughter and music gave way to distant explosions.
Ukrainian pupils are starting their fifth academic year since Russia’s invasion, with no resolution to the conflict in sight.
Thousands of schools have adjusted, switching to remote or hybrid learning, teaching in shelters or closing in destroyed or Russian-occupied towns.
Russian attacks have destroyed an estimated 1 million textbooks, and officials are preparing for what could be one of the war’s hardest winters.
Years of war are taking a heavy toll on Ukrainians as Russia escalates its attacks. Ukraine has few effective means of intercepting the growing barrage of high-speed ballistic missiles, while waves of jet-powered Shahed drones stretch some attacks over days.
With sirens sounding across Kyiv every few hours, school principal Yevhen Poliakov considered canceling the ceremony.
But Lyceum Obolon has a shelter, and he was confident the children could reach safety quickly. They did.
Kyiv schools plan to begin the academic year with a blend of in-person and remote classes, shifting quickly depending on the security situation, the city administration said.
Ukraine’s education minister, Andrii Butenko, said in August that 8,424 of the country’s general secondary schools will operate in person, 1,306 remotely, and 2,211 in a blended format — meaning nearly a third cannot open fully in person.
Poliakov has tried to keep students in the classroom, seeing drawbacks to remote learning.
“Parents need to work and earn money,” he said. “We’ll teach them here, and it’s better for a child to be under our supervision than alone on the ninth floor while mom and dad are at work — with just the dog for company, not knowing what to do.”
His school also uses Mriia, Ukraine’s national education app and web portal, to connect students, parents, teachers, and school administrators and support remote learning.
