The fight to keep the memory of Professor Mercedes Medina alive continues and continues to gain support. Two decades after her name was given to a school in Arrecife, the promoters of that initiative have now gathered almost 500 signatures asking that the center, converted into an institute, retain the same name.
The former mayor of the capital, José María Espino, the first director of Mercedes Medina, Luis Morales, the Education inspector Fernando Curbelo Fernández, a teacher and former student of the center, Irene Betancor, and the teacher Rosa Barreto, teacher for 25 years at the school, delivered the signatures this Tuesday to the Insular Directorate of Education, where they gathered again to make their demands heard.
The signatures are addressed to both the mayor of Arrecife, Ástrid Pérez, and the Ministry of Education, requesting that the agreement of the School Council of the center be reviewed and that the Municipal School Council be convened, proposing that the new name be IES Mercedes Medina Díaz, and not “Instituto de Altavista”
After these claims were made public, the City Council claimed that the teacher's name was removed years ago, when the Canary Coalition governed both the regional Executive and the capital's Consistory. However, the promoters of this initiative insist that the City Council “holds the key to reversing the situation and not generating a social problem due to the neglect and disinterest of the City Council.”
The Mercedes Medina Association itself, as well as other groups and associations on the island, have joined this request.
