Welcome signs, hugs, jokes and smiles. This is how teachers and professors have received the students. Opening the door to centers in the most welcoming way possible, happy with the promise of sharing moments and learning. And, inside, upset with the system for not giving them the conditions to work well.
The three days of school advancement in the calendar – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – have taken their toll in terms of course preparation, welcoming new teachers and administrative management of registrations. All in three days. And social networks have been ablaze with complaints.
"I can already see, with the news and last-minute changes, that I won't have everything ready when the students get to class on Wednesday. The decision to advance the course was unilateral, hasty and wrong. Teaching needs time for it to be of quality and rigorous", tweeted a literature teacher.
"Confirmed: no matter how much you don't eat, no matter how much you spend the whole three days working, you don't have time. There was a lack of planning, time to debate and build", lamented a teacher.
This is the second year that the calendar has been moved forward, which leads to the maximum number of school days per year (178 compared to 175). But the dates, with a weekend in the middle, have reduced the preparation time in the organization of the centers. Next year will be worse as Day 1 is Sunday and if you start on Wednesday, like this year, they will only have two days. The councilor has promised to discuss it with the School Board, but maintaining two commitments of her predecessor: to start the course in the first week of September and not to force teachers to work in July.
Despite the complaints, they did not go to the strike called by three unions which followed only 0.9%. "Having to prepare the course in three days is a lack of respect for education, the teaching teams, the families and, above all, the children", said a teacher. And he mentioned some nonsense.
Teachers, monitors working late to be able to have "decent" classrooms and common spaces to accommodate the children with closed doors to hide those who will already be "ordered". Teaching teams hastily designing significant proposals, with express student transfers. Hasty reception of new teachers at the center. "In three days it is impossible".
Teachers waiting to be appointed. Dripping of number plate allocations a day before. Most cases with students with special needs that require thinking about resources and adaptations. "Families who do not know if they have been assigned and everything because the waiting lists have been blocked to attend to diversity. Didn't anyone think of it?"
Public and charter schools have places reserved for students with special needs due to disability or financial difficulties. Free material and activities are guaranteed.
Reserved places are limited, so if families do not enter, they are assigned another centre, even if there is one on the list of ordinary places. And vice versa. If there is no demand for students with needs, places are freed up for ordinary students. All this was resolved on September 4 and 5. The centers had to call the families to inform them if they were coming in and they had to decide whether to change centers after they resignedly agreed to go to another one.
A flagrant case is that of a vulnerable family of nine children, who wanted to move four of their children to the center for older siblings. There was only room for the three-year-old. "Today!, the same day they start the course, they tell me by mail that they have decided to assign him another school... different from the one for the seniors and the one for the middle ones".
