This back-to-school week, after the All Saints holidays, is proving particularly delicate.
The second wave of Covid-19 has indeed led the public authorities to strengthen the health protocol in schools, especially in canteens.
But this particularly strict protocol turns out to be almost impossible to set up in high schools in the Île-de-France region, warned Monday, November 2, Valérie Pécresse, president of the region, on Europe 1:
"High schools in the
Île-de-France
region. -de-France are extremely busy.
We are a particularly young region,
she explained.
And we realized that 60% of the canteens could not, with three services like today, accept all the children while respecting the protocol.
"
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Several solutions were then put forward by Valérie Pécresse.
First of all, to increase the number of canteen services and, therefore, to do this, to arrange the timetables of the pupils:
"We will have to do four services (...) I asked the Minister of National Education to adapt the timetables, because the pupils will not have to choose between lunch and study ”
.
Another track considered by the president of the region:
"There will remain a third of the high schools in which we will be obliged to make half-gauges of canteen, with cold meal trays every other day".
If the implementation of a health protocol, from the start of the 2020 school year, had complicated things, the problem of meal management has been pointed out by parents of students for many years already.
"The confinement only worsens a situation that already existed before,"
says Rodrigo Arenas, national co-president of the Federation of parents' councils (FCPE).
The kids eat in a very short time.
We put our children through untenable schedules. ”
A lack of staff in Ile-de-France high schools
However, parents' associations and school principals' unions agree that the main problem encountered is not so much the organization of meals and the students' timetable as the lack of recruited staff. by the Region in the secondary schools of Île-de-France.
In 2019 already, in Saint-Maur, a petition was launched by parents of students after the closure, for more than a year, of the cafeteria of the Berthelot high school after the transfer of an agent.
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"There is a huge problem with the numbers assigned by the region to secondary schools in Île-de-France, and not only with canteens,"
underlines Laurent Zameczkowski, president of the Federation of parents of public education pupils. (PEEP) of Hauts-de-Seine and national administrator of PEEP.
“The question also arises for the circulation and mixing of pupils: it is necessary to control the identity of the pupils who enter, especially during a period of attack alert.
We also need staff to dispense them with hydroalcoholic gel, ”he
adds.
Multiple sick days in the face of Covid-19
At the start of the September school year, this latent problem worsened with the sick leave of several agents in the region (technical staff in charge of reception and catering missions, as well as general and technical maintenance of high schools. , recruited by the regions), either considered as people at risk, or "contact case", or suffering from Covid-19.
In September 2020, at the Lycée Jules-Ferry (Paris 9th), the teachers ended up going on strike in the face of the lack of agents following cascading sick leaves, to protest against the health situation of the establishment.
Seven agents were thus on prolonged sick leave, and there were only three left to ensure the reception, cleaning and diving.
The school canteen even had to close for ten days.
Faced with this crisis, the region urgently released an envelope of 2 million euros to use temporary private companies in order to compensate for the absence of agents.
A second envelope of 3 million euros was then voted to allow high schools to open their own market in order to use service providers in the event of a lack of staff for cleaning and the canteen.
Read also: Reconfinement: schools, colleges and high schools remain open with "a reinforced health protocol" said Emmanuel Macron
But it is the cleaning and disinfection staff of the premises, in order to respect the anti-Covid-19 health protocol, which seems to be lacking the most.
It is for this reason that Valérie Pécresse announced on Europe 1 that the Region would
"recruit more than 240 people to clean the establishments"
.
But for Sébastien Volpoet, headmaster at Kremlin Bicêtre and academic secretary of the Union of Management Staff (SNPDEN-UNSA) Créteil, this is not enough:
"240 people for 465 high schools, to clean all the door handles of a welcoming establishment. 1000 people, we are quickly dividing ... It's a drop in the ocean of our difficulties ”
.
Adjusting the schedule, eating at home, coming with your lunch: false solutions?
Other solutions are also being considered, but received with skepticism by school staff.
Thus, that of arranging timetables and organizing meals by “class groups”, mentioned by Valérie Pécresse, exasperates the parents of the students.
"You have to realize the complexity of timetables: in 1st and
12th
grade, class groups no longer exist, we have specialty sub-groups which are grouped together with other classes,"
notes Laurent Zameczkowski.
The heads of establishments have already been authorized to extend the meridian break in order to spread out meals from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
But it's hard to do better:
“The students don't go to lunch at 10am or 3pm!”
exclaims Myriam Menez, president of the PEEP of Val-de-Marne.
Read also: In the canteen, the first meal is an opportunity to take stock of this Covid return
Likewise, the principals were exceptionally able to allow the pupils to bring their own meals to eat in classrooms:
“But the difficulty remains that of maintenance after meals.
We always revolve around the same problem, that of the disinfection of the premises, ”
insists Sébastien Volpoet.
For the time being, this principal qualifies, it is difficult to know if the flow of students in the canteens will increase or decrease.
With confinement, high school students used to having a sandwich or a take-out meal outside their establishment will find the door closed, the bars and restaurants having closed.
Will they then turn to the canteen, or can they go home for lunch?
“In Paris, including in the suburbs, high schools recruit over a wide area.
Children come from far away and do not have time to go to lunch at home
,
”
warns Cécile Frattaroli, president of PEEP Paris.
"Some children (
from low-income families, Editor's note)
only eat a hot meal or meat in the canteen of their establishments,"
Myriam Ménez recalls.