School in SP is banned and government transfers students – 01/26/2023 – Education

After postponing the renovation of a school for more than two years to the point that the building had to be banned for posing a risk to students and staff, the Secretary of Education of São Paulo will relocate students in a unit in another neighborhood of the city, the more than four kilometers from where they studied.

The situation led parents of students from the Alarico Silveira state school, in Barra Funda, west of the capital, to protest in front of the secretariat this Thursday morning (26).

In a note, the folder said that the current management of Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) has “followed the execution of the works in progress and worked to optimize the deadlines for delivery of reforms and improvements”.

According to parents, the unit has suffered from structural problems for years, but since 2020 officials have realized that damage to the building put students and teachers at risk. Even with cracks in the walls and part of the floor moving, classes were kept in place until October last year.

That year, the school board even banned the use of some spaces because of the damage. The kitchen, parts of the courtyard, two classrooms and one of the courts were closed due to the risk of collapse.

Even with the structural damage, Alarico Silveira was one of those selected in 2020 to join the PEI (Comprehensive School Program). Unit officials told Sheet who, upon accepting the model, were informed that the building would undergo adaptations and renovations so that students would have an adequate structure to spend seven hours in the unit, which did not occur.

The situation was reported by deputy Carlos Gianazzi (PSOL) in a session of the Legislative Assembly at the end of November 2020.

“My children started studying at this school in 2021 and the situation was dire. The classrooms had cracks, the floor came off when it rained. I was very worried about leaving my children all day in such a dangerous place”, he says. Rogério Rodrigues Tenório, 52, father of three students at the unit.

It was only in October that work on the unit began. Without finding another school or space to transfer students, the Department of Education decided that classes would have online classes until the end of the year.

“After the children had spent almost two years with remote learning, they went back to this situation because of the secretary’s inaction that did not correct the problem in time. My children’s learning was even more impaired by going two months without face-to-face classes” , says Tenorio.

For the 2023 school year, parents were informed that the students would be transferred to the state school Benedito Tolosa, in Casa Verde, in the north of the city. By car, the unit is 4.4 kilometers from the students’ home school.

Even so, parents were informed that students over 12 years old (the majority of those studying at the school) will not be entitled to school transport and will only be entitled to the school pass. That is, they will have to use public transport to go to study.

“My children used to study down the street from home, now they’ll have to take a bus, cross the Tietê road, go through Favela do Moinho to go to school. It’s a very bad situation and very risky”, says Tenório, who has 12 children. , 13 and 15 years old who will have to make the journey alone.

A teacher at the Alarico Silveira school, who is also the mother of a student at the unit, decided to enroll her son elsewhere because of the situation. She asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.

According to the School Census, last year, Alarico Silveira had 443 students enrolled and Benedito Tolosa, 434. In other words, the Casa Verde unit will have to house twice as many students, in addition to the teachers and employees of the closed school.

Questioned, the Department of Education did not say how it will ensure that the accommodation of all students will not harm school functioning. He also did not say why the work on Alarico Silveira was not carried out earlier.

The folder only replied that the students will be “attended by the indicated school and, as soon as the works are finished, they return to the school of origin. No student will be harmed”, he said in a note.

In front of the school, there is a sign from the FDE (Foundation for the Development of Education), an autarchy linked to the secretariat and responsible for works in schools, with the information that the BRL 5.9 million renovation began on March 11, 2022. It also informs that the work should be ready in 15 months, that is, in June of this year.

The secretariat informed that the prediction of finalization of the reform is “until the end of this year”. The folder did not explain why the sign says that the work began earlier.