Imagine a school where it rains. Imagine that, despite there being windows in the rooms, many cannot be opened and, despite there being doors, some cannot be closed.
Imagine that none of the rooms have a projector or an interactive whiteboard. Imagine that there is no internet nor a single computer.
To compose the bouquet, imagine that it is not possible for a father or mother to pick up their daughter or son by car, because there is no passable road to get there.
Where did you imagine such a school in space and time? Did you imagine it in Portugal? In this millennium? Most likely, he imagined it in a distant country, without roads, or in rural Portugal from many decades ago.
In fact, despite appearing to be taken from an old film or being in a remote parish, it is located in the heart of the city of Lisbon, the capital of our country. Yes, unfortunately it is true.
It is in a temporary location, say those responsible for the parish council to which it belongs (Campo de Ourique) and the one in which it is provisionally operating (Santo António). We know it. Children who temporarily went to those facilities when they were in the 1st year are now in the 6th year. They never got to see the new “old school”.
And it is this word, “provisional”, that has given rise to all sorts of abuses on the part of the Parish of Santo Antônio, which previously used that space exclusively. Note that, as I stated, the school is no longer a school with modern conditions, and the fact that it is located next to a cleaning station (which causes the sporadic appearance of rats and cockroaches) is not irrelevant, but the fact that, last week, parents were prohibited from driving to the school gates is the final blow. Not because there is no path – there is one on both sides, although with only one lane on either side – but because one has always been closed to vehicles for those taking children to school (although sometimes open for other situations), and the other has now been closed.
I’m not being exaggerated. The final blow. At the beginning there was a giant space where you could drive up, turn around, wait for other parents to go up the ramp, and go down again. In the beginning, anyone who was available, even if it was by car, could stay there exchanging some impressions with other people in charge. They could “go to the hammock and just hold hands and say one last goodbye” to the immediately and immediately missed preschool children.
Afterwards, employees from Santo Antônio City Hall placed a fence to surround access to part of the space. How did they use this space? It was never noticed. After another year, a new fence sealed off more space. After another year, a no parking sign clung to this railing outside. Another one last year, pins preventing the temporary use of parking spaces normally unoccupied when dropping off children. A new year, a new railing, this time from the other side. We put up with everything, we tolerated everything, for the children, for the staff, because there was only a little bit left for the school to leave, and for us to stop being the target of such animosity and lack of will.
Until we reached this school year and were faced with the unilateral decision of the Santo António Parish Council to prevent access to motor vehicles. Yes, prevent the use of the only single-lane access for vehicles that take children between 3 and 10 years old to school. After a great demand, they maintained the decision to leave, but allowed the vehicles to go up in the morning, as long as the drivers did not get out of the vehicle, because an employee of the Ourique Field Council would take the children to school.
Well, they drew a circle on the ground, which a car can’t turn around without maneuvers. And they placed fences and pins and vehicles covering all the spaces beyond this roundabout. Everyone, everyone, everyone, but not in the grandiose sense of Pope Francis or the recently elected President of the Republic. And at the beginning, they even allocated 2 vehicles and 2 Municipal Police officers to stay there to watch the parents and not let them drive their cars in to pick up the children in the afternoon, then they started leaving space for only one person to walk by at a time.
I question the fairness and meaning of these decisions. Will a child who breaks a leg have to walk all that way? Of course it is healthy to walk, and certainly everyone who can does so. What is extremely negative is the impossibility of going by car.
I would like our capital to use its budget to improve the conditions of the more than 150 children who have classes there every day and not for pins, vehicles and police officers.
We are talking about 5 academic years of growing animosity on the part of employees of a parish council who, as a student at the school said today, “were certainly children once. Would you like them to treat you like that? But why are they so bad?”
It really isn’t noticeable. Nowhere, in this millennium. And it is much less noticeable in the capital of a developed country.
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