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The crown numbers are increasing, the fear of a new lockdown is increasing, and with it, the fear of new schools closing.
The time has come in the Bavarian district of Berchtesgadener Land: schools and kindergartens are closing! Because there is a Corona package of measures that practically corresponds to a closure, as Bavarian regional chief Markus Söder said on Monday: Restaurants and leisure facilities are also closed, and citizens can only leave their own apartment from midday. 2 pm today for valid reasons. The Berchtesgadener Land district is reacting to an increase in incidence from 7 days to 236.01.
Delmenhorst is different: the crown measures have been tightened there: schools and daycare centers remain open despite a 7-day incidence of 214.6 (as of Tuesday noon, depending on the city).
Ten federal states are currently in fall break, but due to the growing number of infections, they are also concerned about starting school.
Schools and kindergartens have not yet detected sources of infection
THE FACT IS: So far, schools have not been identified as sources of infection. From the time the school opened after summer break to the start of fall break, an average of 98 percent of all students were able to participate in classroom lessons, thus they were not affected by infections or quarantine measures. This was the result of a survey conducted by the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” among state education ministers.
Just a few numbers: in Saxony-Anhalt not a single student was infected with Corona, in Berlin it was only 0.07 percent of students, that is, 7 out of 10,000. In Schleswig-Holstein, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, the numbers were lower than in Berlin. . The number of teachers who became infected with Covid-19 was also very manageable.
►A study by Minister Franziska Giffey (42, SPD) from the Ministry of Family Affairs also showed that the number of reported outbreaks in daycare centers is in the single digit range, with more than 57,000 daycare centers across the country.
Teachers still demand shared classes at hotspots
However, first measures are called for: Heinz-Peter Meidinger, president of the German Teachers Association, criticizes the lack of reaction even when the critical threshold of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in a week is exceeded. He told the “Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung”: “With this value, there should be a return to alternate operations with classes divided in half.”
Meidinger: “Ensures that these stricter hygiene guidelines in schools are completely ignored to keep schools open to the devil.”
The Education and Science Union (GEW) emphasizes that successes were achieved with alternate classes in the spring, and that feedback on alternating face-to-face and distance learning was good. GEW President Marlis Tepe told BILD: “In this way, the students had relatively good contact with their teachers and got on well with the subject.”
However, for families with elementary school children, this is more difficult to implement due to childcare than for older school cohorts, he admitted.
Criticisms from the family initiative
Criticism of the closure comes from the private initiative “Families in Crisis”: “We do not understand why all the kindergartens and schools in Berchtesgadener Land have been closed, but the services can still be served.”
And further: “One thing is certain: a virtual church service is much easier to implement than homeschooling and caring for young children by working parents.”
Even in Ireland, where a second closure has been declared, nurseries and schools would remain open across the board. “This gives them the same status as going to work for adults. We say: Germany can do that too, ”said Alberta Brandenstein, Bettine Schmitz, Karline Wenzel, Malin Elmlid, Louisa Löwenstein and Sarah Wehrs of the initiative.
The expert also warns: Prof. Klaus-Dieter Zastrow, hygiene specialist: “I don’t know if a school was a hotspot. I think it is wrong to close schools. That only brings trouble and resentment. You should not do that “.
Corona concepts in schools: very little progress
“School closings should only be a last resort,” says FDP education policy spokesman Thomas Sattelberger. But: “If the number of infected people exceeds a critical threshold, school closings are necessary and justifiable.”
But that doesn’t automatically mean that lessons are canceled: “You can and should switch your lessons to digital. The federal states had seven months to prepare for a second wave with the appropriate measures, especially the state government of Markus Söder. Anyone who has not used these seven months, who simply went wrong instead of preparing schools for a second wave, is sinning once again against the educational future of our children and grandchildren. ”
But before the shift to digital teaching MUST come, call for more safety measures in schools: “This includes transparent protective walls in the classroom, FFP2 masks for students and teachers, and mobile ventilation devices that fight the virus in a very effective way. much more effective than opening simple windows. “
