Model center for immediate response to urgent schooling needs
At the beginning of this century, in Lanzarote, activity in the construction sector reached unimaginable limits, cement consumption figures skyrocketed, hotels, accommodation complexes, tourist and residential areas grew and changed the morphology of the Island vertiginously. The "call effect" of labor from other communities, the European Union and non-EU countries is evident, the existing scarce educational infrastructures are overwhelmed by the new scenario, the strong demand for educational places makes rational planning impossible, the sudden schooling far exceeds natural growth schooling.
In 2005, the schooling situation in Lanzarote was "extremely serious", that year alone, more than 1,186 new students joined. The island was at the head of the Canary Islands in percentage terms of school growth and the student census far exceeded twenty thousand (20,909). The Argana and Maneje area is experiencing significant expansion, the only existing center in the area, the "CEIP Argana Alta", undergoes several extensions and even has to resort to putting extraordinary modular classrooms to respond to the demand for school places.
The Ministry ordered the highest priority to the search for solutions and to respond in the most immediate way. At the beginning of that year, meetings are held with the entire educational community of the "CEIP Argana Alta" and contacts are initiated with the Arrecife City Council aimed at locating a suitable land for the construction of a center in this area. The contacts extend to the Cabildo, once it is detected that the only plot of land available was owned by the first island corporation, a plot of 10,000 m2 between Santiago Alemán and Torriani streets. The administrative procedures of "making available" are initiated, full of difficulties due to the political instability that existed in that institution.
The Governing Council, meanwhile, at the request of the Ministry of Education and urgently, given the serious schooling problem, opts to enable an extraordinary item to build an "INDUSTRIALIZED CENTER" of two heights with the qualities and spaces required for an educational building with capacity for almost 700 students, distributed in six units of infant, twelve of Primary, eight units of ESO and other complementary dependencies required by regulations, for an amount of more than four and a half million euros. The commissioning of the project and the construction of the modules is executed simultaneously and the time for foundation, transfer and assembly of the pieces is set at four months.
In March 2006, a small model and plans of the new center are presented in the assembly hall of the Argana Alta school to expectant and incredulous parents. At the end of April, the layout report is made and the excavation work begins; moments of tension are experienced, since the property adjacent to the center's plot interrupts the work and makes an attempt to put an injunction to stop the works. The attempt was prevented thanks to the intervention of the Technical Office of the Cabildo and the Secretary of the corporation himself. Here I want to emphasize the massive and unconditional support of the parents when they see the execution deadlines of the work in danger.
Once the civil works and foundation works are completed, the modules from the construction plant in Seville begin to arrive in June. Each sector that is being completed is not lacking in curiosity due to the spectacular nature of the frames and the rapid spatial progression of the building. A strike in one of the subcontractors delays delivery times and the summer is consumed with the work at 70%, plus other finishing details.
For the election of the Director, it was necessary to resort to the advice of the director of the Costa Teguise School, who, a year before, had been given the same "mission". José Antonio Rodríguez González was convinced to direct and put the new center into operation, and which turned out to be a timely and efficient choice, with his help, the provisional zoning of the neighborhood is carried out, it is decided to start the activity in the center with only 6 units (3 groups of Infant and 3 mixed groups from 1st to 6th level); It is also agreed that during the first year of operation only the classrooms for Early Childhood Education will be occupied and that it will be isolated from the main center to give independence to the works that had to continue.
The students begin the 2006-2007 school year provisionally and during the first month at the CEIP "Argana Alta" and at the end of October they come "for the premiere" to the CEO with water and electricity from the construction site, a borrowed photocopier, a mobile phone and the best predisposition, will and enthusiasm of an entire educational community that begins its activity.
Since then, at the CEO, the number of students and the number of innovation and improvement projects have increased; proof of this, just two courses after its launch, it received an award in the Congress of Deputies for "Human Rights" and the "Crea Arte" from the Ministry of Culture, endowed with more than twenty thousand euros. The characteristics of the building have never conditioned its good functioning and its prominent role within the social fabric of this important neighborhood of Arrecife.
Congratulations to the entire educational community of the CEO of Argana for its tenth anniversary and my best wishes for it to continue reaping educational successes for the neighborhood and for the Canary Islands.
PS
To this last center built in Arrecife, I only miss two aspects promised ten years ago: the planting of argan trees around the wall of the center and the extension of Santiago Alemán street towards Calle de la Z.
By Juan Cruz Sepúlveda
