The start of the school year has robbed the Board – and the Administration – of Escola Portuguesa of the blank check and time to assert themselves. Caught between their own mistakes, political and bureaucratic blockages, misunderstandings, corporate resistance and internal conflicts… they have lost the ability to convey positive and peaceful change. It’s worse than feared.
More pupils, with no facilities for them; illegal contracts ripping up rights; teachers dismissed, rehired, transferred, ultimately reinstated; subjects without a teacher; substitute classes with no strategy or content; unacceptable class sizes; tests crammed in; physical education with no space available; a ban on going outside at recess; a – tiny – canteen open late; too many subjects in Year 12; parents in shock, asking for heads… and a tense atmosphere, with no room for negotiation. A real stew.
It’s not all the same; not all the problems are new or have the same culprits; there are no easy, demagogic solutions. But the director, Acácio de Brito, by selling the rosy illusion – in a tone in which only he knew about the pruning – blurred the painting. He had to have foreseen that there was little room for maneuver for so many failures. The arguments don’t stick now, even if some are thoughtful; everything is tribalized and sharpening the knife.
What about the students? A lot is at stake: politics, finances, strategies, interests, egos, relationships… wars are what they are; but kids are not cannon fodder. We need to refocus the debate on them; lower the tension and solve problems with dialog and common sense. That way no one is right – and everyone has something to complain about. It doesn’t make sense, and everything that change – which is necessary – could gain is exploding on minefields. No one would believe that the school year would start like this. Now, everything that is said and done – or not – is cannon fire between barricades; with or without reason, truth or consequence. We need to reset – and now; the students can’t wait. There must be someone who knows how to do it for, at this point, it’s hard to believe.
