The Department of Education of the Generalitat Valenciana explained this Wednesday that it has some 26,000 educational places to relocate the 24,000 students left without school due to the floods resulting from the DANA that the region suffered last week. A total of 92 centers were affected by water to varying degrees, Education reported to the educational community at a meeting held this morning. The ministry estimates, however, that the gradual opening of the centers will reduce the number of people concerned to 10,000 by next week and that 70% of out-of-school children will have a place next week.
The idea of the department led by José Antonio Rovira is to start relocating students as soon as possible, although, according to several sources present at the meeting, he did not explain exactly how this will be done. Education announced that it would send a circular with details of the operation towards the end of the week.
One of the main problems faced by this massive movement of people – if not the most – is transport: education estimates that around 140 buses will be needed to establish school routes, but it is looking for vehicles because a good part of the fleet school – and in general – was affected by the floods. Many families have also lost their vehicles in the floods and may therefore have difficulty traveling alone.
We also do not know at present – education is working on this – how the students will be distributed between the different centers. Today, there is only a circular which establishes that families find a life: those who wish can request a place in a center, which will accept it or not depending on availability. At this morning’s meeting, the councilor did not specify whether there was a distribution plan, although he did mention that many secondary schools only have a morning shift, which could allow for moving entire centers during the afternoon shift.
“We insisted on the fact that all reception processes, both those of entire centers and those that are not, must make the maximum effort so that boys and girls can go together and that their spaces of socialization are not unstructured. They made faces there because yes, it’s difficult. But every effort must be made.
The unions and families present at the meeting appreciated positively that finally – eight days later – the Department informed them first-hand, but they regretted that many questions remained unanswered: where the children will go, how or what will happen to the canteens. ? schoolchildren. In this regard, Education affirms that displaced children will be able to benefit from them, even if it has not responded to AMPAS’s request to extend restoration grants to all minors concerned, whether they have had them or not before.
They also asked the advisor, explains Rubén Pacheco, president of the Confederacio de Ampas Gonzalo Anaya, for a communication effort for families, many of whom are isolated, and who do not have concrete information on what they should do with their children.
Javier González, of the UGT, explained to this newspaper that they have also requested from the ministry “special authorizations for force majeure” for teachers who have to manage various issues related to human or material losses that they may have undergo.
12 centers closed the entire route
“A descent was carried out with technicians and an educational inspection to assess the situation of each educational center, and see which schools can now open, which will have to wait until Monday and which centers – it is estimated that a total of 12 – they do not were unable, at the beginning, to resume teaching activity this year,” the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, explained to the press.
The only thing that Education has so far offered to affected families is the possibility that by managing them themselves they can go to an operational center. But the Generalitat did not offer aid in the form of transport – many families lost their vehicles – or management. This only opened the door, much to the indignation of the families.
“Understanding the difficulty of organizing something, there cannot be a plan for the children,” lamented last Monday Rubén Pacheco, president of the AMPAS Gonzalo Anaya Confederation, the main family association in the region. “There should be an alternative that allows them to get out of the quagmire they find themselves in, which is mentally unhealthy, a mine. We know that even simple access [a algunos municipios] It’s complicated, but the fact that there is no plan so that the children – who should be able to continue attending the centers – have an alternative is quite worrying,” he reflected.
Purchase of equipment
In addition, FAMPA València and the Confederació de AMPAS Gonzalo Anaya have launched a campaign to collect educational materials. Pacheco explains that in contact with the associations of directors of Primary (ADEP-PV) and Secondary (ADIES), a list of needs is being prepared center by center, to from there purchase or request “from all organizations that offer equipment.” what is necessary.
A current account was also opened (ES07 3159 0073 2030 4890 6428) to help with this purchase of equipment and organize children and youth camps to get children out of the mud, “physically and emotionally”.
