• Education: Barracks return to Madrid to minimize Covid infections: 229 prefabricated classrooms installed in 57 centers

Coat, school supplies, backpack and the senior center.

That is the journey that more than two hundred Madrid students undertake every morning, who have been forced by Covid to change the classrooms in their usual schools for municipal spaces converted into primary classes.

Childhood and the elderly,

two generations marked by a pandemic that endangers the future development of one and the present health of the other

.

"I prefer this situation of having classrooms in a senior center than teaching in barracks in the courtyard, which would have left me without that space for the rest of the students and are more uncomfortable, or having them in the gym".

Javier Martín is the director of

the Arcipreste de Hita Public School, in Carabanchel

, with about 50 fifth and sixth grade primary students displaced to

the San Vicente Paul Senior Center

, about 600 meters from the school.

"It is easier to move children with 11 and 12 years of age than the youngest. There we have a group of fifths, another of sixths and a not very large mixed," explains the teacher in conversation with EL MUNDO.

Some students who do not get to coincide with the elders of the municipal center more than from a distance from the window.

"A class is entered through a different door so that there is no contact," says the director.

This is one of the three schools in the city that has accepted the agreement signed by the Community of Madrid and the City Council of the capital to install its classes in municipal centers and thus preserve the security measures against the coronavirus.

An agreement signed until February with the option of automatically extending another six months depending on the pandemic and that

could be extended to a total of 24 months

, according to sources from the Ministry of Education.

Two children go to school at the San Vicente PaulJ center.

BARBANCHO

The shortlist is completed by the

Pintor Rosales Public School

, in Chamartín, and the

Dámaso Alonso School

, in Villaverde, which have set up four classrooms each at the

Nicolás Salmerón Cultural and Senior

Center

and at the

José Ortuño Ponce Senior Center

, about 700 and 500 meters respectively from their usual centers.

"With the spaces that we had left in the center, we could not support even 20 students per classroom and there we can maintain distances of 1.5 meters between the children," says Miriam Villar, director of Pintor Rosales, with a hundred fifth-graders. and sixth outside the center.

"At least they are eight minutes from school because they

offered us another space that was half an hour away and the movement of children like this was impossible,

" adds the teacher.

Despite the proximity of the centers contacted - this newspaper has not been able to contact Dámaso Alonso - with the municipal centers, adaptation to the new environment presents difficulties.

"

It is uncomfortable to have two buildings, but in an exceptional situation it has been resolved in the best possible way

. It is true that it is an expense for the center because it has been necessary to buy shelves and projectors to set up the classrooms, but at least it has not been necessary move tables and chairs ", says Javier Martín, who highlights" the maximum support "of the workers and" the good conditions "of the municipal center.

Good conditions that contrast to some extent with the environment of the place: garbage, homeless people with addictions ... "The only complaint is the unhealthy situation and we have notified the City Council to take care of beggars with addictions who sleep in the area to avoid problems with students ", says the director of the Archpriest of Hita.

A student enters class at the CarabanchelJ senior center.

BARBANCHO

The logistical difficulties, however, have been somewhat greater for the management of Pintor Rosales when they found a renovated and extensive cultural center but very far from the reality of a school.

"Everything had to be adapted because they were large empty exhibition halls,

we had to carry the blackboards and the material

and we are trying to get a good internet connection because now we use tablets and mobiles," says Miriam Villar.

And, in the middle of this situation, a common obstacle: the dining room service.

"This cannot be transferred to the senior centers and we are not going to send a tupperware to the students", agree in the Painter Rosales and in the Archpriest of Hita.

For this reason, both centers

have municipal monitors who accompany students to schools at noon to eat

with the rest of their classmates.

"The choice of transferring fifth and sixth graders is also for that reason, because fewer have a dining room," says Javier Martín.

This is one of the emergency solutions that has had to be applied in Madrid due to the pandemic.

As EL MUNDO announced on December 22, throughout the Community of Madrid there are 44 municipal spaces in different municipalities set up as school classrooms and the regional government has invested more than 21 million euros to acquire

229 barracks that function as classes from 57 colleges and institutes

to reduce student ratios and meet safety distances.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Madrid's community

  • Villaverde

  • Madrid

  • Carabanchel

  • Childhood

  • Coronavirus

  • Covid 19

CovidMadrid imitates the model of the support bubbles of Belgium and the United Kingdom for people who live alone

MadridThe clinical hospital admits that it has vaccinated several retirees who did not enter the priority groups against covid

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