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ARCHIVED - Covid allows rural school to re-open as parents worry about covid risk of sending their children on school bus
The return to school has been complicated, with winners and losers.
A story published in the little town of Arrabalde, in the Zamora province of Castilla y León made the national papers in Spain on Wednesday, an example of a positive aspect of covid affecting a little rural community, yet in the same region, on the same day, there were other stories showing a different side of the picture, as covid makes the return to school complicated. Many parents are refusing to allow their children back to school, and across Spain during the last two days there have been reports of classes already being forced to quarantine as pupils or staff test positive and the situation will continue to be complicated throughout the autumn. These different aspects of what is happening show how covid is disrupting the educative process this autumn:
The positive story:
The Zamora town of Arrabalde, with just over 200 inhabitants, has re-opened its school four years after it closed due to the current pandemic situation, which has encouraged parents to enroll their children in their local community to avoid the need for displacement and reduce contacts as a preventive measure.
In the classroom of this municipality in the Benavente and Los Valles region, belonging to the Agrupado San Pelayo Rural School, in the municipality of Morales del Rey, classes have started on Wednesday for eight Infant and Primary students, says mayor of Arrabalde, Felipe Martín, and father of the youngest student.
Martín has admitted that the reopening of the school has had "a lot to do" with the coronavirus. In fact, a family with two school-age children has returned to the town from Medina del Campo (Valladolid) because the classes in Arrabalde were always going to be less crowded and the risk of contagion less.
The same argument has been used by the local doctor to enroll her two children in the town.
The reopening of the classroom, which had closed its doors at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year, will prevent the rest of the Infant and Primary children living in Arrabalde from having to travel to Morales del Rey every day.
If not, they would have had to go to the San Pelayo Rural School on a bus and travel 17 kilometers to reach their destination, which would have been a risk for children, the mayor explained.
Although two of the eight students are in the last year of Primary, the number of students who will remain in the center will be enough for the school to remain open past this year, and the mayor hopes that it will continue for a long time because "it costs a lot to open and education is a priority in the villages. "
The Arrabalde school has not only helped the children not to have to leave the town to attend class, but it has also helped to secure the adult population, since the teacher himself is a resident of the town and has thus found work close to home.
On the other hand:
Mahide is living today one of the saddest days in its history: after 41 years of life and teaching, the Santa María Egipciaca district school will not reopen its doors as it does every September. It is the chronicle of a death foretold of the rural exodus, exacerbated by the covid virus. The center, the first of its kind that opened in the Alistana area, has run out of children. Another school in Fonfría will hold out for another year with 9 and the one from Alcañices will survive a little longer with 109, including the children from Mahide.
It was also reported that:
The serious outbreak of COVID 19 has left its mark in the area of Sanabria, the most affected area of the Zamora province and Castilla y León due to the lack of school attendance of students on the first day of class. In the Basic Health Zone of Puebla de Sanabria, 23 were missing. in Palacios de Sanabria, 95 in Puente de Sanabria and 76 in Puebla de Sanabria. To which 20 in Revellinos de Campos can be added. In total 214 students did not turn up to class on the first day of the course.
"We are afraid". The few fathers and mothers who yesterday accompanied their children to the Monte Gándara school in El Puente de Sanabria did not hide their fear at the start of the school year.
School buses arrived empty or at most with the odd child on board. Some parents, despite their initial good intentions, decided to return home with their children.
In the end, the school classrooms were only occupied with 5 out of a hundred schoolchildren who came from several towns in an area still under the onslaught of coronavirus.
The education department of the regional government has purchased 17,000 terminals which can be loaned to pupils unable to attend school presencially and installed virtual classrooms in schools, but ensuring that children in rural areas still have access to education throughout this covid crisis is certainly going to lead to a complicated autumn and winter ahead.