After more than a decade and a half of projects, delays and stoppages, the residents of La Aljorra already have a date for the completion of the construction works of the new school, one of their main demands in recent years. It will be in the last quarter of this year, as announced this Monday by the Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Employment, Víctor Marín, in a visit he made together with the residents of the town to the facilities, where the bricklayers are now focusing on the assembly. of air conditioning and heating and of the electrical network, which will be connected to the solar panels already placed on the roof.
When the works began, at the beginning of 2023, the intention was that the new center, which will bring together the almost eight hundred students from the La Aljorra and Miguel de Cervantes Early Childhood and Primary Schools, would open in September of this year with the start of the new course, but the stoppage of the works in May of last year, due to a modification in the project due to the increase in the price of materials, forced the premiere to be delayed. Now, the Ministry is studying the possibility of students being able to enter in the first semester of 2025, although for this, Marín explained, “they would have to have a sufficient period of time to be able to carry out the transfer without harming the course of the classes”. “It is an issue that we will evaluate when the work is completed and always in dialogue with the educational community,” he added.
After this, the residents of La Aljorra, and more specifically the associations of mothers and fathers of students (Ampas) of the two schools and the Platform for a new school in La Aljorra, now demand the construction of an institute. «We were clear that when we got the much-demanded school we were going to ask for an institute. It is enough for us if they only have Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO), because 12-year-old children have to take the bus at seven in the morning to travel to other towns, they mainly go to El Bohío and Los Dolores,” explained the president of the platform, Luisa Carrión.
Location for the IES
For this reason, this Monday they took advantage of the visit to the town by the counselor and the mayor, Noelia Arroyo, who also participated in the tour, to claim the institute, “because by having more services we will prevent our young people from leaving here.” They propose that it be located in one of the two schools that will be empty when the new school comes into operation. They believe that they already have the most important thing, which is the land, now only “renovations would have to be made to the property that is chosen.”
The new center will have an area of 12,000 square meters, distributed in two buildings, and will be equipped with a dining room, gym, playground, sports courts, orchard, parking and classrooms to accommodate 243 Early Childhood Education students and 576 Primary students.
The Early Childhood Education building will have a single floor, with access from the existing Greenway and two direct exits to the playground. The classrooms will also have their own direct exit to the patio. The Primary Education pavilion will be three stories high, with two cores of stairs located on the southwest façade and will open to the playground. This building contains the general use spaces of the center, such as the administrative and teaching area, the dining room and the gym.
The new educational infrastructure will have LED lighting and a sectorized air conditioning system, depending on the guidelines. In addition, it will have photovoltaic solar panels to reduce electricity consumption. The investment exceeds 4 million euros.
New uses for the two schools that will be empty
The mayor of Cartagena, Noelia Arroyo, thanked the parents and neighbors for the patience they have had with the construction of the new school, after the last stoppage that the works suffered at the beginning of 2023. As she explained the start-up of the new school This means that the current CEIP, La Aljorra and Miguel de Cervantes, will be left unused. The Cartagena City Council, as the owner of the centers that will no longer be used, is studying what future uses they could have, in accordance with the requests that the residents of La Aljorra have made. Among them, a Local Police barracks, an infrastructure for social and health care for the elderly, such as a residence or day center, as well as units for neighborhood use, cannot be ruled out. In any case, the mayor pointed out that all proposals will have to be studied carefully before making any decision.
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