The school in question is public, it is called Andreu Castells, and the situation is so extreme that the Department of Education has had to take charge directly. This has happened due to disagreements between the parents and the management team. How did it get to this point? This has been the topic discussed in the program Versió RAC1 by Toni Clapés.
What happened? Broadly speaking, parents say that the level of teaching at the center is very low and that, for example, the students do not even have homework. The management, now on medical leave, defends itself by arguing that they suffer public and media harassment and that the school program is supervised and approved by the Department of Education.
The program has spoken with Mireia Braó, mother and member of the Children’s Families Association of this center, who has been forceful about the management’s position: “It is not positive that they have taken the leave. It is like ‘we are hiding a little and when the tantrum passes, we’ll come back.’ But it’s not a tantrum. We’ve been putting up with it for four years.”
According to Braó, this situation has indeed been going on for a long time and the contacts between the two parties have not provided any solution, on the contrary. “Since the pedagogical method was changed in the 21/22 academic year, students have stagnated,” he explained.
Braó has given several examples of the poor quality of teaching at the center that parents argue: “They are very lost in mathematics, they are not used to studying or doing homework and the children do not have any type of responsibility.”
And it has gone further: “The sixth-grade children explained to their parents that a person from the management team told them the correct answers to raise the school’s grades when the basic skills test was taken.”
The program has also spoken with Manel Vázquez, USTEC delegate to Vallès Occidental and who was head of studies for six years at this school. He wanted to make a call for calm: “The doctor will know why he dismissed everyone en masse. When everything gets complicated and out of control, we have to build again. Andreu Castells is a very good school.”
And he has also pointed out a possible cause of the problem: “In this center the models have changed. They work for projects, by corners, by environments and new methodologies. Before, the school had a more traditional methodology.”
