The students return to school on Monday, but parents and teachers approach the start of the school year in a blur in the face of health conditions and the exponential number of cases due to the Omicron variant.
“I didn’t want to wait another week before going back to school, otherwise we would have been out of step”, rejoices Clémence, a CP student in the Paris region.
The start of the school year will therefore be Monday and without much modification of the health protocol in place since the end of November: level 3 (out of 4) is maintained in elementary schools, like level 2 in middle and high schools. All classes will be face-to-face.
Levels 2 and 3 of the protocol aim to reduce shuffling between classes and levels.
The only change in the rules: in primary schools, if “a teacher is absent and pending his replacement, the students cannot be divided into the other classes,” the Ministry of National Education announced on Friday. website.
For Paule, Clémence’s mother, the decision to keep the schools open avoids a complicated professional situation. “I didn’t want to have to ask to be replaced at work,” said the 30-something, who requested anonymity. “Teleworking with children remains complicated!”.
This does not mean that this re-entry, without reinforced sanitary protocol, reassures her: “We see rules from the outside but we cannot know if they are respected”.
The quasi-health status quo was announced on Thursday, following a meeting between teachers’ unions and the ministry.
The track envisaged two days earlier by Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, according to which students could have to present at least two negative tests several days apart, against one currently, “remains in suspense and depends on the opinion of the High health authority “expected for the weekend, according to the unions.
For now, the rule remains set at a negative test to return to class when a positive case is detected.
– “Cosmic denial” –
The primary teachers’ unions demanded a return to the policy of closing a class from the first positive case, a measure which has not been in effect since November 29. Now, it takes three confirmed cases to close a class for seven days. On the eve of the holidays, 3,150 classes were closed in France due to the epidemic.
“Teachers will no longer be able to drink their coffee standing up, but other security decisions remain pending arbitration,” laments Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU.
“Postponing the date of the start of the school year would only have postponed the problem”, told AFP Laurent Zameczkowski, vice-president of the Peep, who however deplores that “the announcements made by (the Prime Minister) Jean Castex do not have not been specified since December 27 “.
For the Peep, “a cosmic denial” is felt in terms of “securing classrooms”, with in particular the absence of CO2 sensors, which the federation wishes to make compulsory.
“The inaction of the National Education but also of the local authorities” in the face of the emergency situation “dismays” the parents of the pupils, according to Mr. Zameczkowski.
The announcement of the open school is “a great story in which the FCPE no longer believes”, warns its co-president Carla Dugault.
“The school will not be able to remain open, she told AFP, while the students in contact will have to telework” and the teachers, when they are not themselves positive for Covid-19, will have to manage an education distancing and physical, “which is not possible”.
“The educational continuity that we talk about so much does not exist in the field,” insists Ms. Dugault, who stresses that children have been “abused” since the start of the health crisis.
The fair trade-off seems difficult to find in the face of the resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“There is no consideration of the Omicron variant, nothing allows us to return peacefully on Monday”, summarizes Guislaine David, spokesperson and general secretary of SNUipp-FSU.