IES Felanitx, on the brink: teachers report falling ceilings and leaks with improvised pools

A group of teachers organised under the name Professors en acció of IES Felanitx has begun a series of protests to denounce serious deficiencies at the centre, such as the fact that in one area, after the roof had been concreted, the concrete seeped through the false ceiling of the interior of the entrance, as well as the need to use a plastic pool to collect water from leaks. In this context, they warn of the “deep unease of the educational community regarding the current situation of the centre concerning the building's structure and the works being carried out there – which, incidentally, were supposed to begin last summer, not at the start of the school year”.

These days, teachers have gone out into the open with saucepans and green t-shirts to denounce that the Conselleria's response to the situation caused by the works is “totally insufficient”. According to the collective, “the prefabricated classrooms are not enough to shelter all the teachers and students, some of whom in some sessions are forced to teach in the corridors or the courtyard, nor is there adequate space to carry out the janitorial and secretarial tasks”.

Facilities in poor condition

In the statement, the teaching staff acknowledges the work done by the current and previous management teams, but warns that the center's shortcomings “not having fire escapes in good condition for time immemorial; dampness; falling tiles, etc.” have worsened due to this year's rains. “Thus, when these events began, we were forced to abandon certain spaces,” they explain. This initial situation “had led to a call for a strike by the students, which was halted when it was announced that the works would begin.” However, according to their complaints, “the problems have been growing in parallel with the bad weather and the start of the works”.

The teaching staff assures that “the climate that has been progressively created is unbearable” and differentiates between difficulties they consider manageable and others that are not. Among the former, they mention “the lack of parking space, the lack of accessibility to necessary spaces for our daily work (caretaking, secretariat…)”.

Regarding the situations they consider unmanageable, they denounce “the fact of not having adequate spaces to teach classes, for which we have to distribute students around the building entrance, in the hallways, in the courtyard… as improvised classrooms”. Finally, they warn of a scenario they describe as a limit: “But what is totally unmanageable is that we have reached a point where we are putting people at risk”. The Professors in action collective thus concludes the start of a cycle of mobilizations to make visible a situation they consider unsustainable.