Schools are firing teachers, canceling modern teaching styles and deciding who will clean up for them next school year

Let’s look specifically at two schoolswhich are of a completely different type and in two different corners of our republic, and which ministerial cuts in education hit. One is a high school in a large Central Bohemian city where you can study several fields. And the second is an elementary school in a small town in the Ústí Region, which was quite covered in the media some time ago, where they successfully fight with a very diverse composition of students and where, until recently, they had to have school security because of the aggressiveness of some individuals.

Both schools received a new one from the Ministry of Education, and thus reduced PHmax and the headmistress and the headmaster now have to decide how they will ensure the operation of the school at all and where they will have to take away from pupils and students their teachers and modern teaching styles (group and tandem) that these pedagogues helped provide, and to which pupils and students were already accustomed.

First, let’s take a look at the smaller town of Bílina near Teplice. Here is a medium-sized elementary school with the director Mgr. Barbara Schneider. In a recent inspection report, I read about this school that educating such a varied composition of children from Teplice is not easy at all: “The school identifies relatively high number of pupils at risk of school failure, educates a high number of pupils with SEN (note special educational needs), with a different mother tongue, pupils from an unstimulating environment and from families with significantly low socio-economic status. … Due to the high number of integrated pupils, a number of school education programs and topics were aimed at reducing hyperactive and impulsive behavior and improving pupils’ ability to concentrate.’

I know the school a little thanks to the case that I followed and commented on in my blog (you can find my text about the school here). She had to buy a base from Bílina security and camera system because of a few very aggressive pupils who only managed to get into an educational institution after media coverage. Previously, they returned to school and families from there saying that they could not adapt to the system there. Yes, you read that right. That’s how it goes with us sometimes. And because the then Minister of Education Gazdík and journalists finally appeared at the school and a petition was created by parents and teachers about the unhappy situation with the aggressors, the ice was moved. I am absolutely convinced that this event and the media coverage caused the school to relax a little and the biggest aggressors were taken to an educational institution.

Even so, a very diverse mix of children attend Za Chlumem school. According to the director, we can find here approximately 60 to 70% of children from Roma families, a few percent of which are children of Roma from Slovakia who immigrated here, as well as children from Mongolian families (they work in local factories) and also many children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds families. I think I probably don’t need to list the reasons why such a school would she was not to lose any teachers, and that every hand and foot is useful here. And that it would on the contrary, such a school should have strengthened its personnel.

“There was talk that schools of our type will not have a reduced PHmax, that maximum support for these children is necessary. Teachers will be absent as part of the division of groups and in tandem teaching (note 2 teachers work in a class at the same time). In the third grade, we do a lot of robotics. Some of our children have never seen anything like this, so there needs to be two of us there so that everyone can really work with the program.” The director responds to the information from the ministry that she two teaching positions will be left. According to her words, she counted on tandem teaching also up to the first grade given that children from socially disadvantaged families go to school, and they need increased care teachers.

I asked where, for example, in the school they apply group teaching? It is quite common for children to be divided into groups during work classes, but here, according to the headmistress, due to better working conditions for teachers, they also introduced a smaller number of children, for example, in ninth grades. Even so, during the year some teachers leave because of the demands of teaching in such a (diplomatically speaking) diverse school. “Maybe now two teachers have left me during the year.” The headmistress of the school confirms the situation, which from the inspection carried out (the inspection report can be viewed here) came out very well a month ago. But simply teaching here is so demanding that few teachers can do it for a long time. To make matters worse, Principal Schneiderová also received minus two (more precisely -1.8) non-teaching duties as a “gift”. Because she has to clean herself, according to her own words investigated half-time in the cafeteria, non-pedagogues will have smaller rewards, but will keep full cleaning.

And now I will head from the west to the center of Bohemia, where a secondary school is dealing with a similar problem. Mgr commented expressively on the reduction in the number of teaching hours paid by the state. Štefan Klíma, director of the Secondary Pedagogical School and the Secondary Vocational School of Services in Mladá Boleslav: “It’s a no-brainer.” Currently, I will be giving 4 notices. In addition, one teacher is leaving alone.” According to him, in 2023 the school’s PHmax was 1,085 hours, in 2024 it is 994 hours with an unchanged number of students, and in September the school will expect another minus 5 percent of the paid hours taught. The school will thus have to say goodbye to two vocational training teachers, a Czech speaker and a teacher. The workers will find out this week that the director will have to fire them. As a result, according to him, the division of lessons will be canceled and, according to him, if someone gets sick from the vocational training teachers, it means “mega trouble” for the school.

He is said to have been fortunately helped by the founder, which is the region, and will contribute 300,000 crowns to non-pedagogues. And so, in the end, the director of Klíma will have to fire only one of the five cleaners. However, he will only receive funding for two such workforces. The others have to make arrangements somehow. According to him, two cleaning ladies are therefore properly financed, one will be paid by the founder and this one the fourth will have to be paid from the money earmarked for teachers’ rewards. The fifth cleaner learns this week that she has lost her job, even though, paradoxically, there has been an increase in cleaning at the school. According to the director, the school now has an additional youth home and an attic building.

As can be seen from just these two examples, it is not true that only vacant positions were cut, as the Minister of Education repeatedly told us. And it could also easily happen that angry principals and teachers will be on the back foot after this state-directed marginalization of our schools. I wouldn’t be surprised if the planned reform of our education system was thrown out. Because, as was rightly said recently at a round table for the revision of the RVP, where Minister Bek was also present, change must come mainly from the assembly halls. But how can assembly halls be sure of anything when their working conditions are changing with the new government? After all, we’ve all been watching for many months now how ridiculous the text of the government’s statement sounds, haven’t we education is a priority. In light of these very negative changes, the 2030+ strategy can also become just a piece of paper. I think you are the government she chose the least, indeed the absolute least suitable time for cuts in educationat a time when he wants more collaboration, more initiative in schools, he wants to bring about a revolution and a fundamental change in the approach to learning together with the teachers, and at the same time he is throwing sticks under the schools’ feet.

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