BarcelonaAn important part of the schools in the areas devastated by the DANA in the Valencian Country continue to be unable to open due to the ravages of water and mud and because of the mistrust that the buildings do not meet the necessary safety conditions. Twenty centers have had to refer their students to other schools that now function as reception classrooms, although there are also some that have been able to restart classes in some courses after fixing the facilities, according to reports the Generalitat Valenciana. According to a government statement, this Monday 22,000 students from 47 centers located in 14 municipalities were able to return to class. But the management of Carlos Mazón’s government for this to happen is drawing criticism from the education sector. Trade union sources consulted by the ARA criticize that the Ministry of Education “has left each family and each center to find their own life”. The same sources agree to emphasize the lack of aid to clean and condition educational spaces, as well as to guarantee families transport and dining services for students who have to move to another municipality to go to class.
Among the centers that do not meet the necessary safety conditions to reopen, there are 12 that have become unusable and the building will have to be demolished, according to the president of Escola Valenciana, Alexandra Usó. The students of these schools have not yet been able to return to class, with the exception of those from CEIP Lluís Vives de Massanassa, who take classes in the old School of Teaching. Usó says that these figures mean that, for now, only 20% of the students in the affected centers have been able to enter and that there are still 80% who have not.
47 schools reopen this Monday
The concern for the facilities has pushed the confederation of associations of mothers and fathers of students Gonzalo Ayala to claim that in the schools of the Valencian Country affected a second review of the buildings “to guarantee their stability and security”. This entity also criticizes the “repeated and contradictory” changes in the circulars issued by the Ministry of Education between Friday and the weekend, with different indications on which students were relocated and which centers opened. On Sunday evening, the list of schools that had to reopen on Monday went from 47 to 49. Finally, CEIP Blasco Ibáñez de Benetússer and CEIP Batallar de l’Alcúdia did not meet the conditions to resume classes. A worker at this school in Alcúdia told ARA that during the day technicians worked there to check the operation of the light and, for the moment, they are waiting to confirm when they can open.
The confederation has also claimed to ensure hygiene conditions before schools reopen. In this sense, the entity Escola Valenciana has also insisted, which highlights that before the reopening this Monday, the ministry “has not sent companies specialized in cleaning the fungi that, after removing the mud, appear on the walls of the centers”. Cleaning staff have also not been hired, they say, to remove the mud from the playgrounds and classrooms, and that this task has fallen to volunteers, family and the teachers and managers themselves, as also corroborated by union sources. “It’s great that volunteers, families and teachers are picking up mud, but the ministry must take care of it, we’re talking about creatures,” adds Usó.
Labor rights and family support
Another point that raises concerns is the state of school supplies. Until now, continues Escola Valenciana, the ministry has not reviewed it or replaced it. Similarly, the delegate of UGT Ensenyament al País Valencian, Xavi Angulo, explains to ARA that the floods have taken away the school supplies that many people kept at home, and this is one of the needs for which they are demanding aid. They also demand aid, he adds, to guarantee free transport and canteen service for students who have been relocated to schools in other municipalities.
Angulo also underlines his demand that, in this context, teachers’ labor rights are guaranteed. Some, he remembers, still have difficulty moving or are conditioned in some way by the impact of the downpours. One of the options that have been applied to relocate secondary school students in other centers is to enable the afternoon hours, and the answer of the AMPAs has been that it is preferable for each municipality to have temporary educational spaces and in the morning hours to favor the reconciliation of work and family schedules.
Usó adds that some workers have lost their homes and, even so, this Monday they had to return to work, “without any psychological support, and the role of the teachers is to try to give the students that peace of mind, to let talk to them to try to channel their anxieties and fears”.
