Corona hotspots: what's next in schools?

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For them, the compulsory attendance continues to apply: Schoolchildren in North Rhine-Westphalia

Photo: Guido Kirchner / dpa

Saxon parents are currently not to be envied.

At a total of 106 schools across the country, as of Tuesday afternoon, the school doors were closed due to the dramatic infection situation, and face-to-face classes have been temporarily canceled there.

The authorities have ordered a partial closure at another 169 schools in Saxony - more educational institutions are likely to be added in the coming days.

For fathers and mothers of schoolchildren, this means: We start again with the balancing act between job and childcare. And since Saxony has also suspended school attendance across the board, the parents have to decide, once again, whether they want to send their children to schools. However, those who stay at home are not entitled to the support they receive in face-to-face classes.

The Ministry of Culture in Dresden announces almost defiantly on its website: “Despite restrictions in public life: schools and daycare centers remain open.” There is also a quote from Minister Christian Piwarz (CDU), it is supposed to encourage courage: “We will take the situation seriously, but we also have to get back to normal with a sense of proportion. «In view of the almost 300 completely or partially closed schools, that sounds like a pious and rather desperate wish.

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In fact, it is not just the schools in Saxony that are miles away from normalcy.

Wherever the incidences are currently increasing rapidly, the question arises sooner or later whether lessons can still take place in the classroom.

Now the full-bodied promise of the various school ministers, who had categorically ruled out further school closings - and who in many cases probably did not prepare for such a situation, is taking revenge.

U-turn with a signal effect

Britta Ernst, SPD Education Minister in Brandenburg and currently President of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK), repeatedly gave the impression that there was no longer any need to think about school closings this winter.

"The prerequisites for face-to-face teaching are good and completely different from a year ago," said Ernst in August.

At the beginning of October, the education ministers then patted themselves on the shoulders by resolution: “The KMK notes that despite the pandemic and the delta variant, it has been possible to ensure full and continuous face-to-face teaching in all countries in the 2021/2022 school year . "

Too bad that the virus does not adhere to KMK decisions.

Britta Ernst therefore rowed back on Tuesday: She announced that attendance was compulsory for students in Brandenburg

will be canceled.

In addition, the start of the Christmas holidays is to be brought forward by a few days, so that the last day of school of the year is now December 17th - almost a week earlier than originally planned.

That was a school closure through the back door - and one with a signal effect on top of that.

A few hours after the announcement by the KMK President for her state, Saxony-Anhalt followed suit: From Thursday, school students will no longer be required to attend - and the Christmas holidays will also be brought forward.

"With the abolition of the compulsory presence and with the extension of the Christmas holidays to a total of three weeks, we want to help reduce contacts so that the infection rate slows down and the worsening situation in the fourth corona wave relax", says Minister of Education Eva Feussner (CDU) .

Face-to-face teaching »also in regional hotspots«

In Bavaria, on the other hand, which has long since become a high incidence area, there are no plans to bring the Christmas holidays forward.

On Tuesday, the Free State's Council of Ministers reaffirmed that schools in the state will remain open, specifically "also in regional hotspots," as the Bavarian Ministry of Education and Culture announced at the request of SPIEGEL.

Prime Minister Markus Söder expressed himself a little more cautiously in the state parliament.

One wants to try to avoid school closings as much as possible, said the CSU politician with a view to the coming weeks: "We want to learn from other pandemic waves and not start again with children and adolescents."

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Classroom without pupils (in Saxony, archive picture)

Photo: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert / dpa

Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) prefers not to commit himself any more. The schools should remain open "as long as possible," but the situation is so dramatic that nothing can be ruled out. Unlike in Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, no suspension of the compulsory attendance is planned for the time being.

Karl-Josef Laumann, CDU health

minister

in

completely undeterred on Tuesday

: The rising corona numbers have no impact on the presence of the schools, special measures are not necessary, he explained in Düsseldorf.

It is still unclear how the situation will develop until Christmas, but NRW is better positioned than Brandenburg - due to lower incidence figures and a higher vaccination rate.

In the Rhine and Ruhr areas, there is therefore no obligation to wear a mask in class.

Schools "one of the safest places in the pandemic"

Hamburgs

School Senator Ties Rabe (SPD), on the other hand, evidently expects further massive restrictions to regular school operations in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, he announced as a precaution that there would be cuts in the final exams of the current school year: For example, additional final exams and oral exams for the secondary school leaving certificate are to be omitted, the normal grades in the subjects are then sufficient to pass.

There had already been this relief last year.

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For the secondary school leaving certificate, the number of exams will be halved from six to three, said Rabe. And young people who do their Abitur are given limited subject areas to prepare for and more time to work on their exams. These are, said Rabe, "moderate relief" with which pandemic-related learning backlogs should be compensated. “There are probably no completely safe places in the corona pandemic. But when I see the full football stadiums, the well-attended restaurants and shopping centers and the partying Kiez visitors, then I am very certain that our schools are one of the safest places in the pandemic. "

But are Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt with the waiver of the compulsory attendance and the early vacation as a blueprint also for Hamburg?

"If the incidences continue to develop so negatively, it may make sense to repeal the compulsory attendance, for example," said the school authorities in response to a request from SPIEGEL.

In other words: nothing is excluded anymore.