Toulouse: staff malaise against the backdrop of a pandemic at the Rive Gauche multipurpose high school
As in many schools, the pandemic is disrupting life at the Rive Gauche multi-purpose high school in Toulouse. The Sud Education union wrote a long open letter.
The number of national education students and staff who tested positive for Covid-19 had never reached such a level since the start of the school year in September 2021. According to the latest health bulletin from the Toulouse rectorate of Friday January 14, there had 16,698 students and 2,322 staff infected throughout the Toulouse academy, i.e. eight departments.
As a result, 554 classes were closed in the academy, including 301 classes in establishments in Haute-Garonne: 295 in schools, 5 in college and 1 in high school. Two establishments have completely closed their doors because of the pandemic in the department.
“One Nurse”
In many schools, the educational teams manage daily absences linked to the coronavirus which completely disrupt the schedules.
At the Rive Gauche multipurpose high school (Mirail), the Sud Education union wrote an open letter which reveals the ambient malaise. He spoke in the street, Thursday, January 13, where nearly 4,000 teachers and parents of students are in Toulouse.
At the Rive Gauche high school, last week, the South union counted “500 absent students, 250 the previous week” and describes an untenable situation: “exhausted and chronically understaffed agents to ensure the maintenance of the premises; an overwhelmed school life in the face of the management of absences linked either to Covid or to the multiplication of contact cases; a single nurse for the entire school complex following a job cut and teachers at the end of their rope, without a clearly established pedagogical protocol to deal with this chaotic situation”.
Bac exam report
The personnel of the Mirail high school also denounce “heads of establishment left to their own devices as to the application of a health protocol likely to change from one day to the next; a deafening silence from the rector of the academy and a minister who only addresses the media…”
At the top of the demands of the staff, the report of the specialty tests of the baccalaureate 2022 which must take place in March. The teachers hope that they will be scheduled in June. It is also one of the demands of the Snes-FSU, the majority union of the second degree.
Finally, at the Lycée Rive Gauche, the staff demand “listening and a real dialogue on the part of the ministry towards the educational community as a whole, instead of permanent media communication[…]”.