Toulouse: The Marengo-Périole school is mobilizing against the non-replacement of absent teachers
Since the start of the school year in September, nearly forty school days have not been held in the Marengo-Périole school due to the non-replacement of absent teachers. Parents of students, angry and worried, claim “the right to education” for their children.
A piece of cardboard in her hands, the little girl writes her first name and that of her friends in marker: “Irene, Sofia and Noa love school”. His cry from the heart joins the many signs installed on the palisade, in front of the elementary school Marengo-Périole, where the parents have also tied more than 550 ribbons. A daily gesture has become almost a ritual since last September. Each time a pupil of the establishment finds himself without his master or his mistress, a small piece of fabric is added to the previous one forming a long garland.
To denounce these “lost days of class” due to the non-replacement of absent teachers, parents of students gathered on Friday morning at the initiative of FCPE representatives. One more action to alert the Rectorate which for the moment does not provide an answer. “Since the start of the school year, thirty-nine school days have not been provided in this school and the problem was already arising last year. This creates dysfunctions in the organization. Children whose teachers are not replaced are distributed to other classes, at different levels, which find themselves overcrowded. The teachers are exhausted, the parents have to juggle and arrange to have their children looked after… It is the same right to education that is called into question”, regrets Floraima Shack, parent FCPE delegate.
Lack of means
Hanging from the palisade, the sign “I want a teacher, I want to learn”, signed by Elsa, in CM1 class, sums up the general atmosphere for almost five months, between anger, fatigue and worry. These are also the words of Léa, the mother of little Irene. “It’s like for hospitals or justice, when essential public services are not provided in good conditions, it’s worrying”. The fears of parents and teachers should not be appeased if we are to believe the crooks of the Rectorate who expect more class closures than openings at the start of the next school year in Haute-Garonne to face the decline in staff. Closures that will result in the loss of teaching positions.
“Contrary to what Education Minister Pap Ndiaye said about the start of the school year, things are not going well. Absent teachers are not replaced. Every day, we can see the lack of means in National Education. The situation in this school is a new example of this ”, underlines the deputy LFI-Nupes Anne Stambach-Terrenoir, instead of supporting the parents of pupils. For its part, the Directorate of Departmental Services of National Education of Haute-Garonne says it is “mobilized in the active search for solutions”. “The question of replacing teachers is a daily concern of our services which is the subject of extensive mobilization (…). The replacement is at the heart of the discussions relating to the school map which are currently taking place”, indicates the DSDEN.