The parents of students have experienced a restless start to the new school year in the face of a “very complicated” health protocol, slightly modified but far from satisfying the teachers’ unions, who are calling for a strike.
Test your children every two days, come and pick them up urgently … The parents of the pupils have experienced a restless start to the school year in the face of a “very complicated” health protocol, slightly modified but far from satisfying the teachers’ unions, who call for strike. “Parents become goats”, summarizes Laurent Zameczkowski, vice-president of the federation of parents of pupils Peep. “You have to get your child back, the tests and pharmacies are crowded, the wait is painful,” he adds. And in general, “self-tests are not given as expected” in pharmacies.
“It’s a mess,” adds Nageate Belahcen, co-president of the Federation of Parents’ Councils (FCPE). “The parents are completely cracking up, because for those who work, it becomes very complicated, they run everywhere.” The start of the school year has been under tension since Monday with the Omicron variant, framed by a new health protocol which requires a multiplication of tests. Students are now subjected to three tests in four days if there is a positive in the class: an antigen or PCR on the day of the announcement of the Covid case, with certificate to be given to the school, then self-tests to be done at home on D + 2 and D + 4. A complicated device, while the cases are multiplying, with 9202 classes already closed on Thursday, the highest since last spring. The minister acknowledged on CNews on Friday that this protocol was “extremely difficult” for families to live with. He also admitted that “here and there, there may be pharmacies out of stock of self-tests”, but that “normally they are replenished”.
The testimonies of hiccups are however numerous. “The feedback from parents is that there has been a big mess in the application of the new protocol”, even if they do not want schools to be closed “, notes Patrick Salaün, president of Unaape (National Union of Autonomous Associations of Parents of Students) For Marie, a parent of a student in Nice, who had to have her daughter of CP tested, “impossible to find self-tests.” “I think a friend will surely go be able to help me out, but the logistics do not follow.
“Indescribable mayhem”
“It’s just unmanageable,” said Alexandre Leone, parent of a CE2 student in Seine-Saint-Denis, who had to keep his child while waiting for a test, and said “could not pass his day in line “at the pharmacy because he is telecommuting. Laetitia Sarre, in Plan-de-Cuques (Bouches du Rhône), had to “wait an hour” in front of a pharmacy to test her CM1 daughter. “And there was a bug in the registration system,” preventing “at least three or four parents” from performing the tests. Others are confronted with the difficulties arising from absent teachers who are not replaced. “We still did not expect such chaos”, testifies the father of a student of CE1 in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne) whose teacher, absent Monday, had a first replacement then a second, who eventually got sick in his turn.
Caroline, near Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), had to keep her CM2 son whose teacher had to be tested, then her daughter whose Atsem (territorial agent in nursery schools) was in the same case, before d ‘having her son home again … “Everyone’s hallucinating,” she said. Faced with this situation, parents also feared that the students would have to start the cycle of three tests over and over again. They were reassured on this point by an update of the health protocol on Thursday evening: the students will not have to carry out a new complete screening course if a new positive case appears in their class within less than seven days.
On the side of the teachers’ unions, this arrangement was not reassuring. “This precision of the ministry is not at all logical, because there will be even more holes in the racket. The incubation period, according to many doctors, is five to six days”, declares Guislaine David, secretary general of Snuipp-FSU, the first primary teachers’ union. His union, which denounces “an indescribable mess” in schools, announced Friday a call for a national strike for Thursday, January 13, immediately joined by SE-Unsa.
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