The debate about bringing schools forward to September 1: teachers and families speak

Díaz Ayuso has proposed that it be slowly debated whether it would be convenient for students to start school on September 1 Each community chooses when to start classes and how to organize the school year in compliance with state regulations on the number of days Parents of students demand serious measures of conciliation and teachers’ unions, that attention is not diverted from important issues Catalan students have been the first to join this year. They did it on September 5, when they are usually the last to do so. In regions such as Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura or the Valencian Community they will not start until September 12. Reconciling work and family life Ayuso justifies his proposal due to the parents’ need to better reconcile their work and family life. “Families need collaboration considering that the luckiest get to have 20 days of vacation while schools are closed much longer. Families have more and more difficulties reconciling”, the Madrid leader pointed out. The truth is that parents have long been demanding “serious” social and family policies that provide a solution to their conciliation problems. “We believe that this announcement by Díaz Ayuso is looking for headlines that play with demagoguery and populism,” says Mari Carmen Morillas, president of FAPA Giner de los Ríos. “The occurrence of starting classes on September 1, like this, without having been talking to the representatives for two years of families, with so many pending issues, seems a bit grotesque to us. It is true that we need conciliation policies all year round, but by that rule of thumb we can take this measure to the extreme and have schools open 365 days a year 24 hours a day”, she adds. However, Laura G., from Madrid and mother of three children aged four to 11, confesses that it would be a good idea for the children to return to school earlier. It’s the holidays and we have that week hanging at the beginning of September where we don’t know what to do with the boys. Starting on September 1 for me and my husband would make life a lot easier, frankly,” she admits. First days to organize the course For teachers, the first days of September, without having to teach, are vital to be able to organize the classrooms and the school year. And even more so this year in which the new educational law will be applied for the first time, Lomloe. The truth is that the year has already started, many interim teachers who will cover vacancies in Madrid centers this year have not yet joined their positions For the General Secretary of Education of the Workers’ Commissions of Madrid, Isabel Galvín, Díaz Ayuso’s proposal to debate the start date of the course is one more way to “divert attention” from all the educational problems that the community suffers. It seems surprising to me that a government, like the one in Madrid, which is not capable of guaranteeing the minimum that a center should have in terms of resources such as school planning, raises this debate now”, he said. winged. “Why do we want more school days?” asks Galvín. “In the centers the right to education of the students is already guaranteed, but the educational centers are not opened to take care of the children. If you want to have more days in the school calendar, you have to limit what for”. UGT has also stressed that it is “surprising” that Díaz Ayuso talks about studying the possibility of advancing the start of the school year to September 1 when the classrooms have opened this week with a lack of teachers due to the “mismanagement” of the Ministry of Education. This union has highlighted the problems of organizing the course and hiring teachers “which have again delayed the incorporation of teachers to public centers at the beginning of course”, something that “is repeated year after year”. From other communities, such as the Andalusian one, also from the PP, the Minister of Educational Development and Vocational Training, Patricia del Pozo, has pointed out that if the educational community asked her to advance the start of the school year to September 1 “I would have no problem studying it”, but “that has to be a proposal that comes from the whole community” and “they have never made it to me”.