The response to the suspension of compulsory attendance at Berlin's schools could hardly be more different.

From the point of view of the Berlin Education Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (SPD), there is hardly a better time for this.

Because the winter holidays in Berlin start on Friday, there are only three school hours with the issuing of certificates.

After the winter holidays, tests should be carried out every day.

The obligation to be present in Berlin is to remain suspended until the end of February, in Brandenburg it has been suspended for a long time.

On the one hand, the education administration was forced to do so by the massive increase in the number of infections.

Among 5 to 9 year old children in Berlin the incidence is 3689, among 10 to 14 year olds 3949 and among 15 to 19 year olds 2712. The infection rates among educators and teachers are also high.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

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In addition, with rare unanimity, the District Parents Committees of nearly every district came together to call for Giffey to be suspended.

Since Tuesday, parents have been able to decide for themselves whether or not to send their children to school.

In Neukölln, for example, only one to three percent leave their children at home as a precaution.

You must send the school concerned an informal written notice.

The Senate was under particular pressure due to the uncertain quarantine regulations.

After public health officers in individual districts had already stopped contact tracing for students and no longer sent direct contact persons to quarantine in the past few days, and such an approach was announced by all public health officers as an overall strategy, the surprised education administration saw it as a new one situation occurred.

Since then, only students who have tested positive have been quarantined, but the seat next to an infected student is no longer, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not.

The medical officers have referred to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which has been calling for the quarantine for contact persons to be lifted since mid-January.

“The pandemic has now reached a stage where you have to focus on the old and sick and not on the young and healthy,” said the RKI.

The Reinickendorf medical officer, Patrick Larscheid, described the lifting of compulsory attendance by the school authorities as “terrible stupidity” because it was not discussed in the hygiene advisory board.

The Berlin families, but also daycare centers and schools, were in turn unsettled by the announcement by the medical officers because it contradicts the current Infection Protection Ordinance of the Senate.

The Berlin Senator for Health Ulrike Gote (Greens) was disappointed by the decision of the Prime Ministers' Conference on Tuesday and called for a rapid revision of the test regulation.

The Senate Health Committee is meeting for a special session this Wednesday.

Because the health authorities no longer want or can issue quarantine certificates, these are now being issued by daycare centers and schools in Berlin, and the corresponding forms have been made available, said Busse on Tuesday in Berlin.

However, for legal reasons, not all employers recognize such certificates, which are intended to enable the parents who work for them to take children's sick days.

The education administration now wants to get the medical officers to issue a certificate to parents, at least in exceptional cases.

The national chairman of the Realschule Teachers' Association (VDR), Jürgen Böhm, commented on the suspension of compulsory attendance at Berlin schools "as an absolute declaration of bankruptcy by politicians in the pandemic".

The mantra of schools as safe places that do not contribute to the spread of the pandemic has finally had its day.