“The kids say it makes them sick. » This is how the mother of a kindergarten student sums up the “serious situation of dirt” accumulated by Maestro José Fuentes of the CEIP, in Seville East. “It smells bad, the trash is not collected, the floor is dirty and the toilets too,” he tells SevillaelDiario.es, a few hours before picking up the mop to appear at the school gates with other families who demand a solution for this center. of approximately 900 nursery and primary school students.
The problem that prompted this group of mothers and fathers to demonstrate this Wednesday afternoon dates back several months. Although families noticed the lack of cleanliness in early October – seeing that “there was more dirt in the classrooms” and that minors were carrying home “what they retained in their pee because the toilets are disgusting » – team management He explained to them that the center had been suffering from a lack of staff since the end of last year. A situation which became complicated after the holidays.
Since then, the management of CEIP Maestro José Fuentes and the families themselves have been demanding resources from the Seville City Hall (as the administration responsible for the maintenance of public schools), because of the seven cleaners assigned to the center, in May last There were four – as the workers themselves denounced – and the course started with three.
The center’s management confirms to this newspaper that it is in discussions with the Town Hall to find solutions, but has refused to delve further into the matter, insisting that it will inform the educational community of the progress made. Local government sources assure, for their part, that, since Monday, the school has had a total of five cleaning staff, making it “one of the schools with the largest cleaning staff” in the city. capital. In addition, it is reported that the municipal delegate of Education, Blanca Gastalver, visited the school this Tuesday to find out its situation, precisely the day before the demonstration to which the families called.
Tired of waiting
Faced with “the absence of effective and urgent solutions” that they had been demanding for weeks, the AMPA board of directors sent a press release to families in mid-October, proposing that “each class nominate volunteers to participate in a day of cleaning that we will soon organize a mode of “demanding action”, as its president explained to this newspaper. However, the association of mothers and fathers of students has decided to suspend the mobilizations until the meeting that it has already agreed with the officials of the Town Hall is held.
This is the reason why the AMPA dissociated itself from this Wednesday’s gathering, organized by a group of families on their own initiative. “Tired of waiting”, at least 23 families decided to present themselves this Wednesday at the center’s doors with cleaning products to make visible “the anger and discontent” that they have been carrying for weeks.
“We are not convinced to wait to see the results of the meeting with the municipal council,” explains a mother who regrets that kindergarten and primary school students live daily with the waste that accumulates on the ground, with leftovers of excrement, for too many weeks in the toilets and with the stench of the trash cans where the waste accumulates. “The children say that it disgusts them because it smells like pee and poop, the trash cans are not collected, it smells bad, everything is full of paper, it is not collected, it is not cleaned; Until a child has contracted an infection, they will not realize the seriousness of the problem,” he emphasizes.
Seville City Hall confirms that the maintenance problem at this East Seville school “takes time”. At least since May, the reduction in cleaning staff numbers has been discussed on social media. From what the families learned, following the lack of cleaning, a labor dispute broke out between the workers themselves and the local administration.
Until now, the Town Hall proposed as a solution to complete the cleaning of the school with Lipasam working groups who would come and clean the playground on weekends, as was done a few weeks ago. However, families consider these to be “insufficient” measures, as they do not cover the cleaning of nursery classrooms or the interior of the main building.
Beyond CEIP Maestro José Fuentes
The “despair” of the mothers and fathers who organized this act of protest at Maestro José Fuentes is also shared by families from other schools in the capital, such as CEIP San Pablo, which is also planning mobilizations. This center located in the San Pablo district has been without supervisory staff for almost a month and has been suffering the ravages of the storm that hit the province in October of 2023.
This episode caused a piece of the roof of the children’s building to fall, which has not yet been repaired. “At any moment it will fall,” fears Ada Iglesias, the president of the AMPA of this Sevillian center. “There is humidity, leaks, the concrete terraces are cracking everywhere,” describes this mother, dragging worry into her words.
“School must be a second home for children and, at a minimum, a safe place, but we are suffering from total neglect on the part of an administration that keeps repeating that school is a priority, but which did not perform any action.” only action in our center and it does not even carry out the minimum and essential maintenance of a building under municipal responsibility”, deplores Ada Iglesias, who remembers that the families of CEIP San Pablo had to get to work “l last year when they saw that the weeds were growing uncontrollably in the center and that the technicians from the Town Hall were not coming to clear the brush.
Support from the Federation
These two schools in the city benefit from the support of FAMPA Seville, an organization which also announces that it will act “because it is already not sustainable”, as declared the vice-president of FAMPA Seville, Rocio Beginez. “Our demands as families are not being met, there is a lack of cleaning and portering staff as sick leave or retirements are not covered and the management team has to open and close the doors “, he emphasizes.
Even though José Luis Sanz’s team announced in February a shock cleaning plan in public centers, “the current state of schools continues to be regrettable”, as the representative of the Federation of Associations declared of mothers and fathers from the city of Seville. “The centers are suffering from deterioration which is a consequence of neglect for many years, but this government team has been asking us for patience for a year, speaking of inheritance received and without implementing a concrete and ambitious plan that would resolve the maintenance and cleaning issues,” he says.
For all these reasons, the families of CEIP Maestro José Fuentes took the initiative to protest this Wednesday to make visible a problem that resonates in other public schools.
