The return to school in January is particularly tense in the Basque Country, Covid obliges. The positive cases multiplied during the first week of the course, and with them the contact cases. Schools, which question the new health protocol made public the day before the start of the school year, find themselves in difficulty. Teacher unions wrote a open letter to the director of departmental education services (Dasen) of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, François-Xavier Pestel. The latter will respond live to questions from France Bleu Pays Basque on Monday January 10 at 8:15 am.
An “incessant” flow of students
If the day of the start of the school year, Monday January 3, was often complicated to manage for the heads of establishments and their teams, the situation only got worse during the week. The private high school Villa Pia in Bayonne even took the decision to close this Friday January 7, victim of a huge absenteeism, in order to prepare a resumption of distance courses from Monday January 10, before finally giving up “after discussions with the academic authorities”.
Faced with a multiplication of positive cases of students present in the establishment during the first days, the teams had to face a very complicated management of contact cases. The number of absentees is difficult to quantify “because we currently have a continuous round trip of contact case students (to get tested before returning to class or not) because of the new protocol”, says the director of a Bayonne school approached by France Bleu Pays Basque.
“A puzzle”
According to this protocol, once identified, the contact cases must be isolated, then sent home the time to undergo an antigen test or PCR. If this is negative, the child can return to class with a certificate on the honor of parents that school administrators are responsible for monitoring. These contact case students must then perform a self-test on D + 2 and D + 4. And once again provide a parental certificate controlled by the management.
Individual situations multiplied by dozens of students and almost as many different cases. On Thursday you can thus have in the same hour to manage: a positive pupil triggering X contact cases to isolate and as many parents to prevent; students who come back with their first negative test; students who must provide their negative test certificate on D + 2, some of which may also be positive, creating a new problematic situation. “It’s a puzzle” tells us a primary school principal.
The galley of tests
And it’s still more complicated for bilingual courses in which the children most often have two different teachers, in French and in Basque, and are most often found mixed with other class groups in each of the languages of instruction.
It totally disrupts the teaching, it is an additional anxiety factor for everyone and especially for the children – primary school principal
And to compound the situation, the time slots for getting tested in pharmacies are scarce in the Basque Country, especially indoors. Not to mention the self-tests, supposed to be delivered free of charge by pharmacies to students after their antigen or PCR test, but whose stocks, in too small a quantity, are very quickly exhausted. “The labs are overwhelmed, testifies the director of an establishment in Amikuze, so either the children stay at home for the time of the meeting, or they have to go to Béarn or to Bayonne “
Stress for families and children
Stress factors for children and families who must organize themselves in an emergency. Many schools show understanding and try to organize themselves to help parents without solutions. “Two families could not keep their child, so we welcomed them to school”, concedes a school official.
For teachers, it is also an additional burden. Many try to ensure the educational monitoring of absent students in addition to the class. A particularly exhausting remote work to set up for teachers of classes at several levels.
Absent and unreplaced teachers
And to make matters worse, the management teams must manage the absence of teachers, positive or contact cases or whose children are positive or contact cases. The problem is that “the inspection has no more replacements”, says a director. As the protocol prohibits cross-mixing between class groups, it is not possible to redistribute the students of the missing teacher to other classes. We must therefore call all the parents, one by one, to come and pick up the children.
But the rule borders on the absurd some believe. “Even if the classes are not shuffled between 9:00 am and 4:30 pm, our 70 students mix happily in daycare and on the bus, so all that for that ….” lets go of an establishment manager.
All point to the health protocol. And the relaxations announced by the Ministry of National Education this Thursday evening, January 6, are not enough to ease tensions. A majority of teachers’ unions are calling for a national strike on Thursday, January 13.
“This is not a teaching period”
“There is a lack of consideration, complains a director who testifies to the” exhaustion of teaching teams on the front line since the start of the health crisis and who do not feel listened to by their supervisors. We try to do what we can, but it’s not really a teaching period “.
A secondary school principal concludes: “We are holding on and hope that all this ends quickly, because the administrative organization of a school is already sufficiently complex in normal times”.
The guest academic director of France Bleu Pays Basque
School leaders and teachers waiting for answers. An inter-union (FSU-SNUipp 64, SE-UNSA 64, FNEC-FP-FO 64, CNT-AIT 64 and CGT Education 64) sent at the end of the week a open letter to the academic director of the national education services (DASEN) of 64 concerning the very difficult conditions of this new school year.
They “echoed the profession to share with you their indignation in this recovery.” François-Xavier Pestel, the DASEN of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, will be the guest of France Bleu Pays Basque this Monday January 10 at 8:15 am.