parents and teachers call for “mobilizations” on Sunday and next week

Lack of staff, dilapidated buildings, “structural understaffing” of educational establishments… Since February 26, parents and teachers in the department have appealed to the Ministry of Education, without response.

“We are calling on the entire population of Seine-Saint-Denis to rise up for public schools, to defend public schools,” announced Friday March 22 on franceinfo Grégory Thuizat, departmental co-secretary of Snes-FSU 93, teacher of modern literature at the Suger high school in Seine-Saint-Denis, while a “desert college” operation has been organized for several days at the college Jean Jaurès in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) at the initiative of parents to demand more resources.

The mobilization begins Sunday March 24 “in front of the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture, at 2:30 p.m., with a gathering at the initiative of the FCPE93 and mobilized parents of students”, explains Grégory Thuizat. Next week, “March 30” will take place “a major demonstration called for by Intersyndicale 93 to defend public schools in the department”.

A “feeling of relegation, of segregation”

The organizers assert their “feeling of relegation, of segregation”. The situation of the Jean Jaurès college is “symptomatic of the state of emergency in public schools in the department”, alerts Grégory Thuizat. The establishment is “the paradigm of mobilization which has taken place since February 26 in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis”. He greets the parents who are “very involved, very representative and very anchored in the Courtillières district where the Jean-Jaurès college is located in Pantin. It is the entire educational community which is mobilized to provide dignified and decent conditions for exercise of their profession for the staff, but also, first of all, study for all the students of the establishment and more broadly of the department”.

The representative of Snes-FSU 93 denounces “the structural understaffing of the Seine-Saint-Denis department in terms of time and human resources, as at the Jean-Jaurès college” where the unions ask for means to “Student services office”. Overall in the department, the needs are, according to Grégory Thuizat, “175 CPE (Senior Education Advisor) positions, 650 educational assistance assistant positions”. But there are also “lack of psycho-social and psycho-medico-social staff, nurses, social workers”. He again points out the situation of “degraded building”, notably at the Pantin college.

Since the start of the mobilization on February 26, at the end of the school holidays, parents and unions have not “no response” of the ministry to their requests, further asserts Grégory Thuizat. “We started with the observation ‘no resources, no return to school’, so we did not start the school year on February 26”, recalls the representative of Snes-FSU. “The ministry has not yet committed to any concrete, tangible response, other than referring us to hypothetical arbitrations of which we have not yet seen the color at present.” A demand “audience” was asked “in Matignon, with the office of Gabriel Attal, who did not respond to us”, again denounces Gabriel Thuizat.