The Arrecife City Council wanted to clarify that the name of the IES Altavista "was established by the Government of the Canary Islands in 2017", under the mandate of CC. Thus, it does not understand the complaints that have been unleashed now, four years later, and that "they want to attribute to the current government team" the disappearance of the name of Mercedes Medina from the center.
"The changes in the name of this school took place with the Canarian Coalition in the presidency of the Government and in the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands," says the current government team, which recalls that Fernando Clavijo was then the president of the Canary Islands and the nationalist Soledad Monzón the Minister of Education. In addition, he points out that "in the Arrecife City Council, the Councilor of the Canarian Coalition, Ascensión Toledo, held the Education Area".
In a statement, the Arrecife City Council has sent to the media a copy of the decree of July 10, 2017, by which the Mercedes Medina Díaz School of Infant and Primary Education of Arrecife was abolished, integrating the students into the CEIP Los Geranios "And since that same year, the IES Altavista is created, which has its headquarters in the facilities of the previous educational center suppressed in the capital of Lanzarote", adds the current government team.
That decree, with effect from August 31, 2017, was intended to adapt the network of public centers in Arrecife "to adjust it to the current circumstances of schooling in the aforementioned municipality". In it, it was stated that the conversion of the IES Zonzamas into an Integrated Vocational Training Center had led "to the creation of a new IES in Altavista, in order to assume in the 2017/2018 academic year all the ESO and Baccalaureate students who were studying at the IES Zonzamas", and it was indicated that this new center would occupy the same facilities as the CEIP Mercedes Medina, so it would be closed for the 2017/2018 school year, integrating the students into the CEIP Los Geranios.
Accuses the Mercedes Medina Association of "confusing" citizens
"It is very difficult to change the name of this center now when since 2017 its real name has been published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands since 2017", says the current Councilor for Education in Arrecife, the popular Saro González.
The mayor considers it "striking" that the representatives of the Mercedes Medina Díaz Association "attribute" the change of name of the center to "a decision of the current government team, when the official documents prove that the name of Mercedes Medina disappeared since 2017"
In this sense, the government team states that it does not understand that "the representatives of this association, which protects the legacy of that teacher, want to confuse public opinion when their spokespersons had direct responsibility in the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, precisely as members of CC".
Likewise, the Councilor for Education affirms that it was "the School Council of the aforementioned IES Altavista, in its meeting last March, who proposed -within its autonomy and under the Law 6/2014, of July 25, Canarian Non-University Education- that the plenary of the Arrecife City Council ratify a name for its IES Altavista, as it already appeared since 2017".
In addition to the Mercedes Medina Díaz Association, other groups have spoken out in these days opposing the change of name of the center. This is the case of the Padre Claret de Altavista Neighborhood Association, which sent a letter to the media addressed to the mayor over the weekend, in which it asked that this "serious error" be compensated.
Likewise, the Cacharros Social, Cultural and Sports Association, chaired by the former PP councilor Lorenzo Lemaur, sent a statement on Sunday night, calling it "inadmissible" that "the Arrecife City Council admits that the name of Doña Mercedes Medina Díaz disappears from the memory of the municipality".
"We find it inadmissible that the Arrecife City Council allows the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, first to make an ugly gesture to the memory of the emblematic teacher and second to ignore the agreement that the plenary of the Corporation unanimously adopted in 1991 when it considered that the new educational center should bear the name of Doña Mercedes Medina Díaz", they pointed out from this association.
