The lack of 'vetlladores', support monitors for students with special educational needs, is already endemic in Catalonia. But the situation is even more dramatic in the dining room space, where until now this service does not exist because it is not considered school hours. So much so that the absence of this figure prevents many boys and girls with special educational needs from staying at school to eat. And it deprives them of this space for cohesion, in addition to causing serious conciliation problems for families, forced to organize to take their children out of the educational center at lunch time. About thirty schools in Barcelona, led by dels Encants, have started a campaign to claim this figure at lunch time. This same week they have started the commitment of the Consorci d'Educació so that starting next year the espai migdia (name given to the strip for the dining room) will be considered school hours and, therefore, have vetlladores. This Thursday they staged their demand with a popular meal for families on the street.
At Barcelona's Escola dels Encants they know very well what it's like to not have support monitors in the dining room. When the center asked for more hours for vetlladores and the Consorci discovered that they used some of them in the dining room, they withdrew them to use them during school hours, says Sandra Gubert, mother of a girl at the school and president of the AFA. It was then that they decided to hire them through the family association because they considered the importance of this figure in the dining room because they realized that many students with educational needs could not stay to eat if they did not have support. “We have been paying vetlladores in the dining room for years, but these are patches,” Gubert laments. Finally they thought that assuming this service was “privatizing teaching” and currently they only hire 10 hours a week, an insufficient figure for the students with special needs they have. That is why they decided to start a demand, to which more centers have joined, to request that the dining room space be considered school hours and, therefore, have support staff. The Consorci has told them this week that it will be like this starting next year.
Verónica Fernández and her family have joined the complaint. Her daughter Amaia is three years old and this course has started in Encants. She has Angelman syndrome and does not speak. Although she is autonomous at a motor level, she has a cognitive disability and has support staff in the classroom. But she can't stay to eat because espai migdia doesn't have this resource exclusively for students. “She has fine motor skills affected and she needs to be fed soup,” explains the mother, who cannot work and that every day she picks up Amaia from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. to eat and then return to school.
In Encants they began collecting signatures and endorsements in January for the cause of demanding more public resources for inclusive schools. They have already collected about 1,700 signatures and about 27 schools have joined the demand, which has staged a popular meal in the middle of the street with dozens of families, children from this and other centers and also teachers, among whom were Amaia. and Veronica. Monitoring also supports them.
The lack of sufficient support staff has already left some scares at the school. “Last year a child cut a piece of his finger and some of them can't hold the spoon,” says Sandra. There are students with muscle problems, autism or even degenerative muscle diseases. They cannot stay to eat and it forces families like Verónica's to take them home to eat. Fernández explains that the majority of those waiting at the door at noon are fathers and mothers who have children with special needs. Verónica regrets that her daughter – and also her classmates – ask her to stay for lunch at school and that it is not possible. She trusts that with the change that Consorci Amaia has guaranteed them, she will be able to eat with her peers one day because it is “beneficial” for her to be in an “integrated social environment.” Not having this possibility that benefits students also “complicates work-life balance and their lives are already complicated,” laments Sandra Gubert.
The school and the affected families trust that the Consorci's commitment will become effective in a few months and that the dining room space will be considered school hours and can have hours of support monitors. “If the Consorci offers an inclusive school, it must provide resources,” laments the president of the AFA dels Encants, who is also a teacher. Verónica also regrets the lack of resources and that families like hers have to “fight for every right.”
