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Corona and classroom teaching: going to school as a difficult decision

2021-02-25T07:01:17.443Z


Most federal states have returned to face-to-face learning. With school attendance, the number of those who are in quarantine also gradually increases.


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Photo: Inderlied / Kirchner-Media / imago images

It has been ten days since there was news for 151,000 primary school children and their families in Saxony.

Education Minister Christian Piwarz (CDU) wrote to the parents in the Free State that he was "happy with you and your children" that "school is starting again".

For "your children, who are learning to read, write and arithmetic, every day they are back at school counts."

In theory, that may be true, but in practice the virus has by no means been eradicated in Saxony.

And parents are not always as euphoric as the minister.

Mainly because they now have sole responsibility: Compulsory schooling in the country is suspended.

The parents decide who goes to school or daycare.

The example of the state capital Dresden shows how difficult this decision can be.

On Tuesday, a good week after the school opened, the city reported 471 quarantine cases: 302 in daycare centers, 169 in schools.

330 of these are associated with regular operations, the rest is due to the emergency care and the lessons for final classes that have been running since January 18.

Most of the parents had sent their children to school.

The primary schools in Dresden were 94 percent full, the daycare centers 83 percent.

Only one elementary school student in Leipzig infected

In Leipzig, on the other hand, the quarantine rate was significantly lower.

The health department recorded seven positive testers from four daycare centers (three teachers and four children) for the first week after reopening.

There were also 63 contact persons in quarantine, 52 of them children.

Only one of the primary schools was affected, one child was considered infected, and three others were quarantined as contact persons.

The Saxon Ministry of Culture sees no reason to change course.

In all of Saxony there are currently 973 quarantine cases among 140,800 primary school students - that is, only 0.7 percent.

In the 65,000 high school students, 255 cases were reported, or 0.4 percent.

Other federal states are also trying to reopen schools as soon as possible - and leave the decision to the parents.

The Lower Saxony Ministry of Education and Culture announced: “The obligation to attend face-to-face is lifted and the possibility of pure distance teaching is given.” In Baden-Württemberg, too, the Ministry writes: “There is still no requirement for schoolchildren to be present.” This is different in the final classes: Here There have been face-to-face lessons for everyone for a long time, in many federal states also in full class size.

On February 15, Saxony and Lower Saxony were the first federal states to reopen their classrooms for primary school children.

Ten other countries followed suit a week later, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania joined on Wednesday.

Parents, teachers and educational policy are now paying particular attention to developments in Lower Saxony and Saxony.

"Often only a few follow-up infections"

It shows that the high frequency of cases in Dresden is by no means reflected everywhere.

In Hanover, for example, 30 schoolchildren and six school employees were registered as infected in the week from February 15.

"In addition, there are 207 people in quarantine with the children and 13 people in quarantine among the employees," according to the Hanover Region Health Office.

In the daycare centers there were 17 children and four employees with infections;

93 people, including 80 children, had to be quarantined.

The 57 infected people in daycare centers and schools face a total of 602 infections in Hanover.

Almost every tenth case concerns the reopened education system.

However, it turned out "that beyond the index cases in schools there are often only a few follow-up infections," said Sonja Wendt, spokeswoman for the authorities.

"Infections are thus carried into the facilities, but only rarely spread there further."

more on the subject

SPIEGEL education newsletter: Hurray, hurray, the school is (not) open by Silke Fokken, Kristin Haug and Armin Himmelrath

Good news also from Hildesheim: In the past week there was not a single corona case at the daycare facilities in the district.

"At the schools, 16 students * were in quarantine in connection with a corona case at a total of three schools," the authorities said.

And: "Staff was not affected." Göttingen, in turn, reports on four day care center employees and 23 children in quarantine, as well as two teachers and eight primary school children.

So can the numbers help calm the debate and dampen the worries of many parents and teachers?

Current requests to speak do not sound like it.

"Allowing 100 percent attendance without any distance in the final classes, but completely denying classes to other classes to protect health, is not possible," says an open letter from parent and teacher representatives in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The unpredictability of politics creates great stress for all concerned: "Our patience and resilience are at the end."

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-02-25

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