We are starting a week in which important and late meetings will be held on the 2020-2021 school year. Members of the central government and the governments of the autonomous communities will participate in them.
We all hope that these sessions will be fruitful, that solid agreements will be reached and that everyone will go in the same direction for the safety of the members of the educational community throughout Spain.
It should be clear, among other things, that neither the management teams nor the rest of the teachers are health workers because, if we look at the Prevention and organization protocol for the development of face-to-face educational activity in non-university educational centers in the Canary Islands (empty rhetoric), it gives us the impression that the Administration delegates the responsibility for the health crisis to the teachers of the centers, a circumstance that generates great concern in them. It is an alarming dereliction of duty. This is a real nonsense. We need more teachers, materials and health personnel in schools.
On the other hand, the reduction of the ratio in the classrooms should be addressed and decided in these meetings. To guarantee safety, the number of students should not reach 25 and always maintaining a distance of 1.5 m. minimum. It could be the case that the number would have to be even lower, if the classroom is small and the physical distance cannot be guaranteed.
If the Administration insists on starting the course without reducing the ratio in the classrooms, with groups of 25, 30, 35 or more students, these can become real 'viral bombs'. The situation could lead to infections, isolations, quarantines and school closures. Let us not forget the Occupational Risk Prevention Law, which protects any worker, whether or not they are a teacher, and which must always be respected, now more than ever.
If in March mitigating factors could be sought, at this point there is no mitigating factor in the scenario in which we find ourselves, especially when the Administrations have not acted diligently. Now come the rush, on the eve of the start of the course and the rush are bad advisors.
Jesús Manuel Díaz Lorente. CSIF Delegate
