Absent teachers, sick students or cases of contact, closed classes … The day after the start of the school year, school directors must already face the puzzle of the Omicron variant in their establishments and a health protocol that multiplies the tests .
“I had a particularly complex start to the school year yesterday with the absence of three teachers who were not replaced. I had to send about 80 students home”, testifies David Planche, director of an elementary school in Fontenay-aux-Roses, in the Hauts-de-Seine.
“During the day, the inspection sent me two replacements, and so I called the parents back,” he continues. “Then a child who was present yesterday tested positive in the evening, and therefore we had to ask all the students to go and be tested (…) Icing on the cake today, a number of animators are affected by the Covid, so there was no canteen. We also had to write to parents “.
“I have the impression of having done three weeks of work, and yet we did a day and a half!”, Summarizes this departmental manager of the SE-Unsa union.
“We are under water from the second day. I’m overwhelmed,” adds the director of a Parisian nursery school.
The directors have been living since Monday, like teachers and parents, a back-to-school period under pressure with the Omicron variant, which raises fears of a very disturbed month of January.
According to the new school health protocol, unveiled on Sunday, level 3 (out of 4) is maintained in elementary schools, just like level 2 in middle and high schools, in order to reduce the mixing between classes and levels.
But the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer has now decided to submit students to three tests in four days if there is a positive in the class, changes that further increase the tasks for schools, especially that there are many cases of Covid, both among teachers and students.
– “Huge stress” –
“For two days, I have been drawing up lists, with the children in contact cases, those who were positive cases from the leisure center last week …”, says Marie-Hélène Plard, director of a nursery school on the Island. -Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) and responsible for the SNUipp-FSU teaching union.
“It’s totally a gas factory,” she said. “Just at the scale of my school, it will quickly become unmanageable”.
Another change in the protocol, there is no longer a class closure as soon as we reach three cases of Covid, but only “depending on the situation”, according to the ministry. A situation which adds uncertainty for some directors, because “at least the three cases, that had the merit of being quite clear”, judge David Planche.
School principals must also explain the new rules to parents and sometimes face their dissatisfaction when announcements of class closings or tests to be done or verifications of these tests.
“It generates enormous stress and we do not know how to manage it in front of the gate”, indicates Emmanuelle Maray, primary school principal in Ille-et-Vilaine and SNUipp-FSU representative. “It’s a mess in the schools,” she says.
“We find ourselves facing parents who are very circumspect when we announce the new protocol to them”, adds Faustine Ottin, director of an elementary school in Bruay-sur-l’Escaut (North), confronted with “a lot of absences and ‘children who are tested “.
The directors are also worried about degraded learning conditions, because “managing the comings and goings permanently does not allow the school to function normally”, underlines Marie-Hélène Plard.
“It’s permanent adaptations”, with teachers who already sometimes juggle between face-to-face and distance education when the class closes, says David Planche. “We’re going to have to find a way to work, because teachers can’t do both.”
For Emmanuelle Maray, the situation after nearly two years of Covid, is “exhausting” and “really real exhaustion”. “How are we going to hold on?” She wonders.