“Rovira and Mazón, resignation”, “The president, to prison”, “Escoles sense fang”, “La llengua no es tumba”, “Escola enfangada, Conselleria amagada”, “Carlos Mazón, to prison” or “the president, to Picassent”, where the best-known Valencian prison is located, are some of the chants that were heard again this Saturday in the streets of Valencia.
Just two weeks after more than 130,000 people demonstrated in Valencia to demand the resignation of the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, for the management of the DANA that devastated more than seventy towns in the province of Valencia, causing the death of 221 people, a new march with the motto ‘Rovira i Mazón, resigned’ has once again filled the streets of the center of the Valencian capital to protest against the actions of the Department of Education in the crisis caused by the storm and demanding the resignation of Minister José Antonio Rovira. The protest occurred the day it became known that the Constitutional Court has admitted the appeal presented by Compromís against the Consell’s educational ‘freedom’ law for processing.
Called by the Platform in Defense of Public Education, the protesters, some of them coming from schools located in the ‘ground zero’ of the tragedy, carried signs that read ‘Volem tornar a classe’, ‘Per un cole lliure de fang’, ‘Rovira go home. Mazón go home’, ‘Ara vos agranarem a vosaltres’, ‘Are you waiting for the fairy godmother? Enough of the stories’, and several senyeras have been seen with a black bow as a sign of mourning and attendees with green t-shirts with the motto ‘Estimem l’escola public’.
In statements to the media before starting the march, José Manuel Casermeiro, representatives of Fampa Valencia, criticized the “disaster” and the “rush” of the Department of Education for “giving the order” to open the educational centers affected by DANA while “has not put in place the means of cleaning” or “disinfection” to leave the facilities in good condition after the passing of the storm.
In fact, he has assured that it has had to be the families and the teachers themselves, in addition to the volunteers, who have been in charge of cleaning the centers and has warned: “You cannot return to a study center if you do not has been disinfected and if not, a report has been made in which the conditions in which it is opened are healthy and hygienic.”
Casermeiro has insisted on demanding Rovira’s resignation and has maintained that DANA’s management “has done is accentuate its very poor management and lack of organization.” He has also denounced “the closure of classrooms” and the lack of school transportation. “It’s all so improvised that it seems conscious of how poorly done it is,” he stated.
The protesters, among whom were the Compromís ombudsman in Las Corts, Joan Baldoví, or the PSPV Education spokesperson in the regional parliament, José Luis Lorenz, demand a “safe” return to school after the tragedy and wanted to show the “huge” discomfort of the educational community. They consider that the head of the Ministry is “incapacitated” to face the crisis that has arisen, while they denounce the “lack of judgment” on the part of Education.
The Ministry maintains that it has offered “different solutions”
The regional secretary of Education, Daniel McEvoy, defends the work that the department is carrying out “from the first moment” so that the students of centers affected by the floods caused by DANA “return to the classrooms with the maximum guarantees of safety and health ”.
The department headed by José Antonio Rovira insists that they have been in contact with city councils, educational centers and families “to listen to their needs”: “We have offered different solutions that are being adopted according to the particular situation of each center and each municipality.”
Thus, they highlight that the transfer of students to other municipalities has been launched, progressive entries and “other measures will even have to be adopted in the most devastated centers”, such as the installation of prefabricated classrooms. According to reports, since November 11, around 32,000 students from municipalities affected by the storm have returned to classes.
“Extraordinary cleaning tasks are being carried out in educational centers through Tragsa and Vaersa. The Minister, general directors, inspectors and technicians of the Ministry have been to centers in the damaged areas on several visits. But we haven’t gone to take a photo,” says McEvoy.
Furthermore, the regional secretary insists that different measures have been taken to facilitate the education of children and young people, such as “extraordinary reception, aid to replace textbooks and curricular materials.” “In this delicate moment, it is not the time for division. It is time for the entire educational community to unite, to support each other and work together to return to normality in the classrooms,” he concluded.
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