SAINT MARTIN (MARIGOT) – The President of the Collectivite of Saint-Martin Daniel Gibbs had committed to this: no school in Saint-Martin would reopen its doors without the guarantee of sanitary conditions able to protect students and staff, a press release from the Office of the President said on Thursday.
Following the tripartite working meetings on the reopening of the Saint-Martin schools, which have been held over the past two weeks between the Collectivite, the Rectorate and the Prefecture of St. Martin Saint-Barthélemy, the decision was taken to allow only the opening of the CP classes, the double classes of CP/CE1 and the fifth grade in all primary schools of Saint-Martin, from 18 May.
This joint decision comes after the meeting on Thursday 07 May between the Prefect Sylvie Feucher and her services, the Rector of Guadeloupe Mostafa Fourar and her services, Mr. Vice-Rector Michel Sanz, Mr. IEN Boyer Dominique, Mr. Climent-Pons of National Education, Mr. President of the Collectivite, Daniel Gibbs, and his Vice-President Annick Pétrus of the Collectivite.
The President of the Community, together with his team, took into account the disturbing statistics provided by the National Education on the pedagogical emergencies of the students of CP/CE1 and cm2, pivotal classes in terms of learning to read and numeracy, and preparations for the re-entry to the College for children in fifth grade.
In fact, the schools of Saint-Martin are responsible for 80% of the priority education and the social circumstances that affected Saint-Martin during the school year, were not conducive to learning to read for the CPs and CE1s.
Given the stakes for these levels of education, it was decided to allow them to join the school benches, starting on Monday, May 18.
The President wished that all primary schools could benefit from the same process of reopening. The eight primary schools will therefore reopen at the same time on Monday, May 18.
The Collectivite has initiated repair work in all the schools of the1st degree concerned. This work is ongoing and is mainly the rehabilitation of electricity networks in buildings and ventilation and plumbing systems in the sanitary facilities. They will be completed at the end of this week.
In order to ensure perfect hygiene in the classrooms, the Collectivite has launched a disinfection of schools. All classrooms will be disinfected during the week of May 11; this operation will be renewed as many times as necessary. Due to the very small number of school students enrolled, this service will not be activated.
Parents of these three levels of education, exclusively, will have an additional right to enrol their children until 22 May 2020. Applications for return to class after this date will beerconsidered by the 1st degree inspector in connection with the Collectivite of St. Martin and returns to the classroom will be effective from June 2, 2020.
The class schedules set by the National Education are as follows: students in CP, CE1 and CM2 will be class from 8 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., Monday to Friday (Wednesday included).
The children will be accommodated from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. The school day will be continuous. Teachers will participate in the children’s luncheon.
The CTOS will manufacture and deliver hot meals daily from 11:00 a.m. CTOS officers will prepare meals in canteens, meals will be taken by teachers and children in each class, in accordance with distance rules, barrier gestures and in small groups.
In order to avoid a concentration of students and any health risks, an hourly rotation in each of the canteens can be set up. The rectorate specifies that teachers will carry out this educational support work on their regulatory obligations of service.
Aware of the immense socio-economic difficulties faced by families, given the need to limit health risks and contribute to the psycho-emotional recovery of children after this long period of confinement at home, the President of Saint-Martin decided to grant free school meals for all until the end of the school year. The children of Saint-Martin will be treated equally.
This exceptional measure related to the crisis is likely to soothe relations between students during the lunch break and before the resumption of the last educational sequence of the day and the return home.
It is expected that 500 students are potentially affected by this resumption, with 12 students per class in the 50m2 classrooms and 10 students per class in the 45m2 classrooms. According to national guidelines, the wearing of masks is mandatory for teachers and supervisors, not for students.
President Daniel Gibbs and his executive insisted throughout the discussions that they would not take any risks for students and ensure that the strictest hygiene and safety measures would be implemented as part of the reopening of schools.
In addition to the work, the Community of Saint-Martin is in charge of equipping its staff with protective equipment and the establishments with liquid soap. Rector Mostafa Fourar said he had placed an order for masks for National Education staff. Madam President Sylvie Feucher confirmed the availability of masks in sufficient quantities for teachers and school supervisors, thanks to the scheme launched jointly by the Collectivite, the Prefecture and fondation de France to manufacture washable fabric masks by the island’s couturier artisans.
As barriers are much more difficult for very young children to implement, the community has indicated that it will not be able to open kindergartens in satisfactory health safety conditions before the start of September. The rectorate specifies that the resumption of present-day education, exclusively for 6thème and 5thgraders, is the subject of studies and analyses that are not complete. Definitive information will be provided to parents in the coming days. High schools remain closed for the time being.
The Delegate Prefect, the President of the Collectivite and the Rector are doing everything possible with their teams to ensure that hygiene measures are optimal. This shared decision to reopen elementary schools by grades meets the specific educational needs of the children of Saint Martin. The Collectivite of Saint-Martin presented its scheme today to teachers’ unions and territorial staff, as well as to the associations of parents of pupils.
READER NOTE: The majority of this story was translated from French to English.
Source: Souliga Newsday https://www.soualiganewsday.com/index.php?option=com-k2&view=item&id=31342:school-reopens-may-18-only-the-cp,-ce1-and-cm2-school-classes-will-reopen&Itemid=450
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