Next Tuesday, September 8, thousands of children will return to the classrooms in Ceuta. But the first day of class, and probably many of those that will come after, will be deeply marked by the crisis that the city has suffered since last July 30, when more than 70,000 immigrants crossed the border with Morocco. If spirits among the Ceuta population are tense, a feeling of "insecurity" and "distrust" predominates among families. That the Government has deployed private security at the doors and surroundings of schools has not reassured the educational community, which feels that normality has been stolen from it and doubts that the current conditions are the most appropriate, especially for adolescents who already go to school alone.
"There are many people who do not want to take their children to school, who are afraid. Others have no choice because we work... although if I saw that the majority of families decided not to take them, I would consider it," Laura Ferrón, a 42-year-old Ceutí, mother of a three-year-old child who will go to school for the first time this September, tells 20minutos. With one year younger, the little one would not even have the possibility of going to the center, since Ceuta decided to delay the start of classes in nursery schools until the end of September due to this situation.
Aware of the need to calm things down, the Government announced a security plan so that schools remain under surveillance during school hours, but also in the afternoons and at night to "avoid intrusions" and guarantee that "access to educational centers will be a safe transfer," according to the Secretary of State for Education, Abelardo de la Rosa. The device foresees that there will be agents from the Police, the Civil Guard, the Army and Civil Protection on school routes, bus stops, near schools and at the doors of the centers themselves, especially at entry and exit times and during breaks. The specific number of agents that will be assigned to the device is not known, however, and sources from the Government delegation assure this newspaper that they will not provide it "for security reasons."
But families see these measures as a "patch" and fear that this will last throughout the school year. "A whole year of security at the doors? I wouldn't like my son to think that normality is having a soldier at the school door," Ferrón asserts. Cristina Roldán, 43 years old, mother and teacher at a public institute in the city, thinks the same. "Everything is going very slowly and at the moment they are not providing real solutions," he denounces this newspaper.
"They have stolen their summer, don't let them steal their education"
The teacher confesses that she is feeling a "contradiction" between the fear of taking her children to school and the belief that they should go to class so that they do not lose that too. "Like many other parents, I am not totally sure that my children will be safe at school. But on the other hand, I also believe that my children have been robbed of the summer, the beach, the parks, their friends... and what I am not willing to do is for their education and their routine to also be robbed," she says.
As a secondary school teacher, Roldán had a meeting before the start of classes with the faculty, where the director told them how this security plan was going to work: "The problem is that in our institute the majority of students come and go alone now. So, they are going to put surveillance on the door, yes, but what along the way?" His 7-year-old son will also return to Ortega y Gasset, one of the centers that were occupied by several migrants in the first days of the crisis. "They entered the classrooms and everything. The janitor told me that recently they were still coming in to sleep, although they have told us that they have already cleaned everything and are ready for the first day of class," he says.
Even so, the director of the Federation of Associations of Mothers and Fathers of Students (FAMPA) Cuatro Culturas of Ceuta, Sofía Ortega, assumes that the course will start with high levels of absenteeism. "There are families who told us that even though measures are taken, they will not be taken to school for the first few days," he says. The problem, he says, is that there is a general distrust of the administration and "a lot of discomfort" and "concern" about the imminent start of the course, and they feel that they have very little information. "What worries families is security, inside the centers themselves and outside, because the city is a little tense and tempers are very tense," says Ortega, who claims to "recover the trust that has been lost."
Beyond security
Beyond safety, teachers and families warn of a second consequence: the psychological impact of the last month. The teachers describe an atmosphere of concern and alert and demand that the response does not fall solely on them. The unions have insisted on the need to reinforce psychological support, both for students and teachers, in the face of a situation that can affect coexistence and the development of the course itself.
"There has to be a psychologist in all the centers, because this is going to take a toll. Teachers can no longer cover more load than they carry," claims Lola Cuadra, spokesperson for CSIF Education in Ceuta, who also demands support for teachers who now, she says, live in "constant alarm."
