On Gaspar Aguilar Avenue in València, the old road to the Cemetery, funeral homes dot the commercial basements of the facades that face the Doctor Peset Hospital in that impossible juggle between touch and the hope that drowns death. One of them faces the entrance of the Santo Ángel de la Guarda Infant and Primary School, fenced and sheltered with a bamboo fence from the cars and ambulances that parade every day. It is not his place, but he has had to be there, between a gas station, an Italian food restaurant and next to a lot for sale where another fast food center is invited to set up. On the other side, the main building of the hospital stands and next to it, a parking lot.
Students, teachers and structure moved in 2018 to this plot owned by the City Council (where the future IES Peset Aleixandre will go) while the corresponding one is being developed, in the same district of Jesús, but located on San Vicente street - where the old Engineer barracks - and where the new school building will be built.
The new construction is included in the latest update of the Department of Education (dated July 2023) within the Edificant Program. It has a budget of 7,948,827.31 euros and the planning date is between 2024 and 2027, but the works have not started and the families are concerned.
Meanwhile, the school operates in barracks, a concept that in previous times was so much promoted in educational policy in the Valencian Community. "The air conditioning is very good and the center works well, we do not complain about that, but we want our school. We know that public works do not happen overnight, but they told us six months for the tender and the site remains the same ", laments Antonio Richart, secretary of the Association of Mothers and Fathers of the CEIP Santo Ángel de la Guarda.
In September 2020, the drafting of the execution project was put out to tender, with a deadline of 20 months and it was subsequently awarded, but not its construction. Sources from the center assure that the inflationary crisis has 'invited' the construction company to return the project to the Conselleria to update the prices. They keep waiting.
This same week the center has contacted the corresponding department to request a meeting, since a year ago they were told that the construction project should be redirected again to the Department of Education to update the prices and that the administrative process could take a few six months. "The educational community does not have information on this important matter," the management reiterated in an e-mail sent to the Ministry.
Meanwhile, families have adapted to the movement of the school bus that takes them to and from school since they moved centers, not without problems at this last start of the school year. "This service had always worked more or less correctly, but as of this course they have changed companies, it is a shame. The Administration blames the company and the previous government, the company blames the two governments and the previous government blames the current government," explains the AMPA spokesperson.
Being residents of the area, they closely monitor the lot and observe the changes that are being made. They assure that at the moment there is no trace of the school and that since the elections everything has been especially stopped. However, those who work at the AMPA strive to ensure that the center does not lose the involvement of families, whose profile has changed in recent years. "We are worried that it will end up becoming a ghetto school," they point out.
Antonio's eldest son is in sixth grade, and next year he will go to high school, the youngest still has a way to go, which he hopes will be at the new center. In that wait, he fought from the AMPA to get a non-slippery floor in the new location or "we were the ones who asked that they put up some walls to separate the school from the parking lot, so that the children would not directly eat the smoke from the cars." The families, he explains, are the most interested in the educational center being built.
