PHOTOS: Sergio Betancort.
Parents of children from the Playa Honda nursery have gathered this Friday at the doors of the center to show their discomfort with the San Bartolomé City Council. This center was governed by Montessori education, but at the end of June the City Council put out to tender its management for the next academic year, with specifications that, in the opinion of the parents, have "nothing to do" with that concept. In addition, they affirm that they sent signatures to the mayor, María Dolores Corujo, asking her to maintain the project, but they regret that their request has not been heard.
The spokesperson for these parents, Raquel Llamas Fuentes, explains to La Voz that they consider that the new tender is a "cut and paste of a specification for a regular nursery". Thus, this mother points out that it proposes a ratio of one teacher for every 18 children, something "unthinkable" for them, who currently have "two teachers for an average of 15 or 17 students at most", with "specific training" in Montessori education. "The specification is already going downhill. People will come who may or may not be valid, but with precariousness," she adds. Raquel Llamas explains that, in addition to disagreeing with the conditions of the specification, they disagree with this tender taking place now, in months in which, if the parents wished, they would hardly find a place for their children in other nurseries.
"We are talking about mothers of babies who do not know who will be in charge of their children"
According to her, they learned this week that two companies have already expressed their desire to compete for the tender, but this mother regrets that they do not know "what type of companies they are". "The parents find that our desire to continue with the project has not been respected and we have to swallow what comes because we are not within the registration period," she explains. "The deadlines have been so fast, so short, so little within common sense... we are talking about mothers with babies who today do not know who will be in charge of their children from September 2nd and who do not understand why," she adds.
Faced with this, they ask the City Council to maintain the Montesori project and, if not, to "at least" give them "a transition period of one school year, so that families can plan, because there are parents who have just enrolled their babies and thought they were going to enter a Montessori school with a wonderful, super-prepared team, and now they don't know who will be there in September."
"They are making a mistake"
This spokesperson affirms that despite the attempts of the parents it has been "impossible" for the mayor of San Bartolomé to receive them and that they have only managed to get the Councilor for Urban Planning to attend a meeting this Thursday. They asked him to "transmit the desire" to Corujo, as they believe it is a "mistake to change a Montessori school for a service company".
"For a parent that is a trauma, you have to have a little empathy," says Raquel, who in addition to being a teacher by profession, is the mother of a child diagnosed with autism. This mother affirms that her son has experienced an "abysmal change" since he attends this center. "The people who are working are doing it so well, they have such a beautiful project now. Nobody is going to respect the Montessori project, and it is a quality of education that we should bet on," defends this spokesperson, who believes that the San Bartolomé City Council could "hang a medal" for being the "only" one that has a center with these characteristics.
"We are more than 70 families, not happy, but who have transmitted with signatures that the project be maintained, that we change whatever needs to be changed, but do not change the project," she adds, affirming that the parents trusted in the "good faith and common sense of the mayor" to maintain this type of education. "I am a teacher and I work in a center with a ratio of 25 students. One tries to be the best professional possible within the means they give her, because the council does not give you more. But this is in our hands, we must fight for this project."
