In some schools in France, the start of the school year was cut short.
Barely seated behind their desks, the students had to put away their notebooks, forced to return home after the discovery of a suspected or proven case of coronavirus in their establishment or in their class.
Elsewhere, despite the suspicion around a teacher or a student, some school doors have remained open.
The reason: contaminations or contacts which often took place before the start of the school year.
The hypothesis of class or school closures appears in the protocol published by the Ministry of National Education on August 28.
The instruction: "React without delay and in a proportionate manner in the event of the appearance of confirmed cases of Covid-19 among students and staff (contact tracing, test policy, isolation measure or even partial or total closure of a school or an establishment if the situation warrants it) ”.
If the closures of establishments or classes must remain the “exception”, as Jean-Michel Blanquer has repeatedly said, they have already taken place.
The day after the start of the school year, several school directors had to send the students home, as in Saint-Priest and Saint-Didier-au-Mont-d'Or (Rhône), after the report of a child tested positive and who had made his comeback.
How many school or class closures exactly?
"Impossible to know at this stage", answers the Ministry of National Education.
"These are decisions that are taken collegially, between the regional health authority, the prefect, the rector of the academy and the local authority attached", specifies the ministry.
From "case by case"
Concretely, once warned of the presence of a suspected case or confirmed by the head of a school, "the ARS is responsible for identifying, informing and monitoring contact persons at risk and decides on the adapted screening ”, we can read in the protocol.
The ARS entrusts the results of its epidemiologist investigation to the authorities, who can decide on a possible closure of the class or school.
"The decisions can depend on the number of contact cases or the layout of the premises", explains the rectorate of Haute-Vienne, questioned by the Parisian.
In this department, two establishments are the focus of attention, with several teachers potentially contaminated before the resumption.
“The fact that there is not a single rule can give the impression of vagueness but each situation is studied.
In the rectorate, no situation has justified a closure.
If this were the case, this decision would be taken by the ARS / rector / prefect trinomial ”, we confirm.
Contacted, the ARS of Haute-Vienne did not respond to our requests.
A policy of "case by case" therefore, according to the local contexts of circulation of the coronavirus and the particularities of the establishments.
In Baziège (Haute-Garonne), where a student tested positive before the start of the school year when he had just attended a playground with other children, the latter must stay at home but the start of the school year has taken place for everyone the others, according to La Dépêche.
Adapted time slots and a specific organization have been put in place.
The town hall tells us this Wednesday that no new case among the students or staff has been identified.
Replacements, for how long?
In many institutions, cases were identified before the start of the school year.
In Orleans, an Atsem, (territorial agent working in nursery school), tested positive this weekend, as in Hérault, where a case was found on the day of pre-school, in the ranks of school staff kindergarten, reports Midi Libre.
Confined, the teachers were replaced.
The same goes for Loïc Breilloux's school, located in Le Vigen, one of the establishments under surveillance in Haute-Vienne.
Since Sunday, this school principal has been in contact with one of his colleagues who tested positive.
While waiting for the result of his test, passed this Wednesday, he noted some hiccups in the method.
"It's good to have adapted the protocol and not have a single strict rule because the virus does not circulate in the same way everywhere", he emphasizes.
But everything is far from clear.
“There are still some communication issues.
I had as many different answers as there were interlocutors when I wanted to know when I could resume.
An occupational doctor told me that as soon as my positive test and without symptoms I could return to work, someone from the CPAM told me that even with a positive test I should stay at home for 14 days, ”says the professor. in CM2 class.
Newsletter - Most of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le Parisien
I'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.
Learn more
Thanks to the arrival of substitute teachers, "the start of the school year went rather well (Tuesday)", assures the mayor of Vigen, Jean-Luc Bonnet. But for how long, worries Loïc Breilloux. “Everything is done to avoid school closures, so there are replacements. At the beginning of the year, it is easy to find them, but in October, November, December, it will be more complicated. There will probably be sick teachers, and children of sick teachers ”.
