At the Teodoro Llorente public school in València they started the week with a circus welcome party and ended it with leaks in the building. In between, there was a lack of teachers and a lot of concern about the reorganization of the course in its first days, although finally on Friday the staff was complete and its director finally breathed easy, after juggling a lot. And in general, the start of the school year in the Valencian Community has gone in fits and starts since the first day, last Monday, September 11.
Since August, the fronts of the Department of Education have been growing and the last straw came on Friday, with the request for information made by the Ombudsman of Greuges, who has opened an ex officio complaint about the problems with the awards of teachers. The errors in the telematic adjudication system that have been going on since August have tightened the rope this week, already with the boys and girls in class.
The turning point of this crisis occurred in August, when there were interims without an assigned position who had to wait almost until the last day to be assigned due to errors in the awards, with the inconveniences in their personal life and in their family conciliation that that causes.
But with the awards made, the situation did not change much and on the first day of class there was still a lack of staff. This was reported by the directors of public preschool and primary schools, who did tricks to balance schedules. “It is the culmination of an area that should be managed calmly, which should not be a bargaining chip or political issue,” laments Javier González Zurita, head of Public Education at UGT-PV.
Both Wednesday and Thursday, new lists of awards were known, although errors were also detected here, the unions allege. That is why it is even contemplating returning to the in-person system, which has not been used for about three decades except for specific cases, to prevent the telematic program from wreaking havoc again on the future of the academic year. "He has told us that they are studying it," confirms the head of UGT-PV.
With this scenario, the members of the Education Sector Board ANPE, CSIF, CCOO-PV and STEPV gathered on Thursday at the doors of the Ministry. Megaphone in hand, those gathered assured that “there is no worse way to start the course than this” and asked for “respect and dignity for the teachers.”
And not only is the problem with places on the table, the reorganization of schedules at ESO also stands out due to the recovery of the two teaching hours for English and mathematics that the department directed by José Antonio Rovira raised just before of the reinstatement of teachers. Regarding this, the unions say that the teachers' schedule has not been respected and they have conspired to be vigilant against these modifications or others that affect the labor rights of a group made up of 81,736 teachers in the Valencian Community.
Looking ahead to Monday, they hope that the problems can be fixed, although Marc Candela, coordinator of STEPV Union Action, explains that emails continue to arrive every day from teachers complaining about errors and asking for a solution. "Let's hope that next week the problem will have been detected so that it can be awarded normally as always, since we are inheriting errors from the August award," he laments.
For the opposition, the start of the course has been chaos. "The students have been affected by the total lack of coordination of the Department and an absolute abandonment of the City Council. No one has lifted a finger to see what was happening and come up with solutions," lamented yesterday the spokesperson for Compromís in Valencia, Joan Ribó.
Also from the PSPV, the former regional Secretary of Education at the Botànic, Miguel Soler, has asked the government of Carlos Mazón to "let the educational community work" and not blame the previous Government for "its manifest incompetence."
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education has been putting out fires by meeting with the unions and trying to calm things down at this unique start to the course. The councilor insists that the errors in the awards are a legacy of the Botànic.
But as if the lack of teachers were not enough of a conflict, on Monday many families encountered problems on the school route that had to take their children to class. More than a thousand students using school transport were affected on the first day of the school year when up to 14 drivers from as many routes did not show up, all of them from the province of Valencia.
And far from being solved the next day, throughout the week, there have been incidents: buses in poor condition, others that arrived late and many without adaptation, since a good part of the affected students are students from Special Education centers. Their families, disgusted by this week's treatment, have called for rallies next Monday in up to seven different centers in towns such as València, Alzira, Xàtiva, Torrent or Algemesí or Cheste.
Given the problem, the Department opened a file against the company Monbús for not providing the complete school transportation service and warned the company that it would take other types of measures with the legal office if these were not resolved. On Friday there were also problems in some centers with many buses, which they described as aging, and even dirty. “It's a disaster,” denounce families and teachers.
The education conseller, José Antonio Rovira, points out that there is "a corporate war" as a cause and that "unfortunately, the Conselleria and the students have pillaged us in the middle, but we are going to take timely sanctioning measures with the company that has not complied since the first day".
And in the midst of the educational tangle, Minister Rovira has recovered the idea of reducing multilingualism in the Spanish-speaking areas of the Valencian Community, which he already showed intentions after his appointment. A proposal that neither the unions nor the opposition like, and that warns of a complex course, and of intense political struggle, in educational management.
Annoyed families, critical teachers who assure that "in the offices they will be angry with us for protesting, but let them hear us: we will not stop as long as there are teachers without positions and empty classrooms," they warned with the megaphone in front of the Ministry.
