Port Garaud, the smallest school in Toulouse, will not reopen at the start of the school year due to lack of staff
In September 2022, the Port Garaud school, the smallest in Toulouse, will not return. And its two classes, which have been welcoming small, medium and large sections of kindergartens since the mid-1950s, will not reopen. Since last February, the departmental services of National Education and the town hall of Toulouse point to a lack of staff to justify its closure.
Faced with the mobilization of parents of students who organized rallies, gathered more than 1,500 signatures thanks to an online petition or even deployed a giant banner 40 meters long in Place du Capitole, the decision had been postponed to the Departmental Council of the June National Education. The time for the City to “seek solutions” and encourage possible new registrations.
Only about thirty children were registered for the start of the school year
But these months of respite have not changed the figures. The thirty children registered for the next school year do not allow to maintain two classes and therefore to keep the school open concluded this Thursday the CDEN. Among the parents, who for several months have been asking in vain for a modification of the school map to direct more students to Port Garaud, it is misunderstanding and sadness that dominates.
“Why didn’t the town hall do everything to save this extraordinary school, on a human scale? It was a real place of social diversity and a chance for all the children who are accommodated next door, in the Touril women’s home, ”explains a mother. Like others, she also says she is “worried” about the upcoming return to childcare conditions in neighboring schools with “overcrowded classes and already dormitory problems”.