Diverse school landscape preserved

Green Group calls for differentiated learning opportunities / waiting for school development plan

‘The existing school landscape in the Main-Kinzig district is characterised by its diversity,’ says Jakob Mähler, deputy chairman of the parliamentary group and spokesperson for school policy for the Green parliamentary group in the district. “However, schools in the district face many challenges.  Inclusion and integration, gaps in supply, especially in the eastern and western circles, or the coronavirus pandemic with its numerous bureaucratic hurdles and the greatly changed everyday school life raise questions whose answers continue to be awaited by the circle's full-time policy.”

There can only be one answer to these challenges from the political side: "the best possible support for schools, teachers and students. What does not help in this situation and reveals the lack of any understanding of the difficult situation of the people working in the school is the creation of uncertainty as to whether the existing school offer will continue to exist in the future and the speculation with possibilities on the part of the main officials", says Mähler.

‘For us, a functioning school system means that there is a wide range of options.’ In addition to traditional mainstream schools, this also includes special schools and integrated comprehensive schools: “These offer the possibility of targeted learning and are very well received by learners. We reject the conversion of integrated comprehensive schools." PuSch, intensive or pre-school classes are also an important milestone for a differentiated school landscape: ‘Anyone who demands a school system consisting only of primary school and subsequently of primary and secondary school as well as high school has not recognised the signs of the times.’

The school development plan will be the first inclusive school development plan: “Inclusion poses many challenges to school policy, be it the question of which special schools are retained in the district, whether sufficient teachers from special schools are available and how the increased need for care in regular schools should be addressed in the district despite consistent school social work.”

Many parents would like to see more intensive care for their children in a special school: "If the circle only makes 15.25 jobs available for school social work at over 90 schools and reduces offers for better and targeted support, then those are left alone who stand in front of the classes every day and deal with the difficult situation and have received far too little support from politics since the coronavirus pandemic at the latest," criticises Mähler.

It is significant, for example, that the announced air filter devices have still not arrived at the schools in the district: "In the July district meeting, we as the Green Group made it clear that we consider the purchase of air filters to be a task for the district council, which can monitor the timely procurement here." Instead, the Grand Coalition trusted the words of the district council, which promised to order the devices directly in the coming days, "with the result that we now do not have a single air filter in the schools over two months later", says Mähler.

The school development plan is still waiting: "After the school development plan was transferred back to the Education Committee at the beginning of the year due to numerous errors, such as the complete lack of consideration of school development, we have been waiting for a new version since then," said the school policy spokesperson: “We have criticised the fact that the lack of high school provision in the Westkreis is to be compensated for by reducing the number of secondary school classes at the Kopernikusschule Freigericht and increasing the number of secondary school classes. So instead of creating a local offer, the circle prefers to let the students drive from Bruchköbel or Nidderau to Freigericht. This is neither meaningful nor reasonable for the pupils.”

The Green Group calls on the debt harvester to present a new school development plan soon: "But we also expect that the gross mistakes and the readable perplexity in important school policy decisions can no longer be found and hope instead for sustainable ideas for a modern school policy and not only for the description of the status quo", concludes Mähler.

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Enquiries to:

Jakob Mähler
Group Managing Director
Alliance 90 / The Greens Main-Kinzig
06181/61596
0176/46763336
fraktion@gruene-mkk.de