This Monday, the Hessian students and teachers return to their school buildings.

In other federal states, for example in Rhineland-Palatinate, they have been going in and out of schools for a week.

The thing about the buildings is worth mentioning because the question of whether face-to-face lessons will be possible again was an important topic during the Christmas holidays - for children, young people, parents, educators, politicians and representatives of associations.

Florentine Fritzen

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Even in times of the spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus, everyone basically agreed that everything had to be done to avoid school closings. However, there are different views as to whether the planned protection is sufficient and how the schools are equipped in the event that the students are sent back to distance learning.

Education Minister Alexander Lorz (CDU) is confident, also with a view to the youngest, many of whom are not or not yet vaccinated.

The corona vaccine has only been approved for children between the ages of five and eleven since November, and the Standing Vaccination Commission recommends vaccination for children with previous illnesses, but not for everyone in this age group.

“With our close-knit test regime in schools and the requirement to wear a mask in class, we are proceeding carefully and can constantly monitor the infection situation in primary schools, too,” Lorz told the FAZ. The vaccination rate for teachers is around 95 percent.

Closures for primary school students serious

Particularly with a view to the elementary school students, Lorz also warned against rushing to turn around again. In his opinion, the “emotional and social consequences of a closure” would be “particularly serious for the youngest”. Nevertheless, the minister did not rule out the possibility that individual schools “would have to change the form of teaching” in the event of increased outbreaks of infection. According to the Ministry, the schools are well equipped for this. After all, in 2020 and 2021 they had gained a lot of experience with distance teaching and digital teaching, and the equipment in schools had "made a big leap forward". All teachers received tablets or laptops, as well as 100,000 students from needy families.And 96 percent of the public secondary schools and 85 percent of the primary schools used the state school portal as a teaching and learning platform.

Pupils, parents and associations, on the other hand, do not see schools as being prepared for online lessons.

The chairman of the Frankfurt City Parents Advisory Council, Rafaela Hartenstein, is pessimistic about the eventuality of school closings.

She calls Frankfurt, where WLAN is still a long time coming in many schools, a “digital black hole” and also reminds us that the state's video conference system, which is to be integrated into the school portal, is not yet in place.

As a precaution, some schools have now checked whether all girls and boys have access to the Teams provider, for example.

But that is by no means true for everyone.