4,500 classrooms are closed due to the pandemic in Spain. The centers assure that they do not have the means or the necessary training to serve students’ online
When Carmens children were sent home because a classmate had tested positive for COVID the families did not believe the tutors reaction She sent a voice note to the parent delegate telling the children to do their math and read a lot And ready
Ahead two weeks at home school hours but no lessons It took the center a week to give them an alternative The protocol said they had to have classes A father denounced him and we already started with the Classroom a platform for distance education the second week explains this mother of an elementary school student from a public school in Jaén
They have been forgotten for a week As if we could afford it after six months without school protests Carmen Some 4500 classrooms 13 of the total They are confined to Spain according to the last official balance that Minister Salvador Illa offered in Congress last Thursday
This figure could be around 90000 students with an average of 20 students per classroom Federations of family associations receive complaints like Carmens on a daily basis
It occurs throughout Spain where educational neglect for confined or blended students is the norm In some communities such as Madrid or Andalusia complaints are more common than in the rest according to parents associations
Pedro Delgado from the Andalusian Confederation of Associations of Parents of Students Codapa attributes it to lack of coordination In August they did not prepare anything and the instructions arrived at the same time as the confinements he says
There more than half a thousand classrooms and 10 centers have been closed since returning to school Although the norm establishes that educational attention must be adequate and online few schools and institutes are prepared to apply it
We lack technological means training which is not mandatory and there are teachers who do not handle themselves online says Enrique Jabares of the Association of Primary Directors of Andalusia
In Madrid where more than 4 of the students have been confined 31501 students and 1740 classrooms since the beginning of the course Dolores not her real name spent more than a week doing homework with her sevenyearold son who attends a concerted center in the capital They came to him by email and without explanations
It was a calendar in Word with homework but without instructions And some foreign mother complained that they did not even speak Spanish well But we even had homework in English he recalls
At the Blas de Lezo school the families are not satisfied either From the center which has already closed six classes this year when the first quarantine was decreed they were assured The teachers as long as they are not on sick leave will carry out their teaching tasks with the groups that are in their homes through institutional mail videoconferences and educational platforms
Those teachers whose groups are attending school will continue with their facetoface teaching work However the reality described by the parents was very different
Manuel Hernando father of the school council takes stock One has made two files throughout her quarantine others only three 25minute videoconferences
The most fortunate had daily homework but did not advance content The management has been disastrous it has prohibited everything it only allows Educamadrid But this platform is not working and teachers do not know how to use it It makes you want to cry he laments
Alejandra Rodríguezs children who go to this school were confined for no reason
They confined their class but they joined later So they were sent home for 11 days without ever seeing the infected girl The principal said she had no one to put them with although there were more classrooms in her class
They lost two weeks through sheer disorganization They have left us to our fate he protests
Despite what the families report the Madrid Ministry of Education says that no complaints have reached them In the federation of family associations in Madrid FAPA Giner de los Ríos they laugh at the response of the Community
They are preparing a report with all the complaints received to send it to the counseling We are depriving students of a fundamental right and although it is very serious no one assumes it as their responsibility explains Carmen Morillas the president of FAPA
Childhood at risk
The most worrying thing for Álvaro Ferrer a specialist in educational equity at Save the Children is that childhood is being put at risk And he adds Children become disconnected and disconnected from the rhythm of learning from their teachers and those who are most at risk end up failing he explains
He believes that they should have planned to hire support monitors trainee teachers or do what they have done in France where online classes have been assigned to teachers who are atrisk staff at home
When a spokesperson for the Madrid council is asked what they are going to do to guarantee the fundamental right to education he points in another direction The educational centers are in charge of organizing the tasks and must guarantee the continuity of the educational activity both in person and remotely in case of confinement
But the directors allege that they have not been given the necessary means to carry out this task
It is normal for families to protest because they were told that there would be online classes But we do not have a connection that allows us to attend to both those in class and those at home and if they use it at school it does not allow the inmates to connect In 90 of the centers it is not viable explains Esteban Álvarez León president of the association of Madrid directors of Secondary
Installing the necessary network supposes about 10000 euros according to Álvarez who put it in his center We have not received the devices or the promised cameras and then 17 million euros are spent on digital content that is already accessible for free on the Internet he says
Although he says that in some cases teachers fight to reach their students as it is and even connect with the 3G of their mobile
The Madrid council responds without giving deadlines that it is deploying highspeed WiFi networks in all centers and that it plans to deliver 1500 corporate telephones for directors 2500 laptops for management teams and 5000 desktop computers although it does not clarify when And in two weeks the cameras will arrive he completes
The cameras are precisely a point of conflict in the centers where they already were there are teachers who refuse to use them At the parents meeting the principal told us that he cannot force teachers to use it and several teachers said that they did not feel prepared to teach online
We didnt believe it But its his job with a camera or whatever Isnt it Wonders María Fernández mother of a thirdyear ESO student from a high school in Leganés Madrid Enrique Jabares from the Andalusian directors association regrets that the director of Leganés was right It is the risk of not regulating by law how online teaching should be and the obligations of teachers he says
High school and high school students experience these shortcomings and this lack of foresight between worry and outrage Andrea Henry from the CANAE confederation of student associations believes there is lack of coordination
There is no plan that regulates anything in a unified way in each institute and each community is different he says The problems are being faced by the centers that opted for facetoface classes they have not designed a plan and they do not have the way to teach online and when you send the students home they are left unattended In the end the students pay the price for their disorganization he concludes
