Manacor criticizes a change in the way of choosing school that no one had asked for

ManacorThe City Council and the management teams of the public and subsidized schools in Manacor were caught off guard when the Ministry of Education informed them that the municipality, until now divided into four school zoning areas (Manacor, Portocristo, Son Macià, and l'Illot), was becoming a single zone, as is the case in the rest of Mallorca's municipalities with the exception of four: Calvià, Andratx, Selva, and Santa Margalida.

“The problem is that someone from the Ministry has started doing the math from an office in Palma, without taking into account the reality of our municipality”, explains the local Education councilor, Ferran Montero (MÉS-Esquerra).A reality that has been in effect and successful since 2015, when the Manacor educational community decided to create clear criteria in order to equitably distribute students and avoid social and economic imbalances concentrated in certain centers.

The Ministry has said it will not back down and will apply the single school district from next year; which, basically, means that a family from Portocristo, for example, will be able to enroll their children in a school in Manacor city or in the hamlet of Son Macià, without residency criteria or whether the parents work nearby influencing the decision.

“There has been no prior dialogue with the educational community or the City Council”, complains Montero, “not even the management teams knew about the intentions to change the zoning system, which allowed students to go to school in their own town. In this case, with a single zone, what we are doing is increasing all distances, which, in Manacor, are not short. We are worried that children from l’Illot and Portocristo will not be guaranteed to go to school where they live”.

The director of the Sa Torre Infant and Primary school, Maria Esperança Nicolau, maintains that “the fact of becoming a single zone will clearly break the balance that we have achieved today”, and criticizes that “not prioritizing proximity and balanced distribution will mean that the different centers throughout the municipality cannot ensure that each classroom has the same sociogram and that 'ghetto' schools can be formed again as happened in Sa Torre at the time, with the serious consequences that this entailed and which we already know”.

“Thus, the experience will have been in vain and we will make the same mistake again. The interests are different. The solution implies that the Ministry listens to us, listens to the schools and the City Council”, he adds. “Since they did not count on us at the time, now, let them back down and respect the exceptionality of the case of Manacor in the same way that they have respected it in other municipalities that will be able to continue schooling by zones”.

Councilor Montero insists on focusing on all those families “who, for work, family conciliation or transport reasons, will not be able to afford to take children to a school that is not in their town”. “The Ministry has done is take numbers, without knowing exactly what the reality of our municipality is, a very extensive municipality, with several population centers. As if it were Inca, for example, which only has one center”. “Therefore, we must guarantee that children can go to school in their own center or the closest one to where they live”.

Common front

Manacor has opened an institutional, educational, and even legal front against the implementation of the single school zoning area promoted by the Government. The rejection is broad and transversal: the City Council plenary, the management teams of the centers, and a large part of the educational community agree in warning of the risks of a measure that, as they denounce, can break a consolidated model based on equity, proximity, and social cohesion.

Last March's municipal plenary session approved a motion presented by the MÉS-Esquerra, PSIB-PSOE, and AIPC-SyS groups, which frontally rejected the new single zoning. The proposal insists on the need to maintain the current system, in force since 2015 and recognized as good educational practice in the Balearic Islands.

The current system has facilitated a balanced distribution of students, avoiding the concentration of vulnerable profiles in certain centers and promoting more diverse schools. “In addition, it has strengthened the link between school and territory, especially in a municipality with a complex geographical reality and nuclei with their own identity”, explains the City Council.

“When they told us, everything was already done”, recalls Cati Cabrer, director of the Sa Graduada Early Childhood Education school. “The equitable distribution from 2015 until now has gone well and has helped to better distribute the needs of public and subsidized schools in the municipality. That's why this change seems so strange”. Meanwhile, she maintains that “in a year's time, perhaps it won't be seen yet, but this model will end up having a negative impact”. “I also don't understand that the Ministry of Education already knows if there are places left before the May enrollment process...”.

According to the data handled by the Government, there are currently 26 vacant places in 4th year of Early Childhood Education. “There are vacant places in all centers except at CEIP Simó Ballester. There are enough places and enough supply for parents to have freedom when choosing a center and, according to the data and according to the Ministry's technicians, it has been considered appropriate to designate Manacor as a single zone”, explain sources from Palma.

“They will tell us: 'Do you see that everyone has finally entered where they wanted?'. Sometimes, a school becomes fashionable… now perhaps parents from Portocristo who don't even work in Manacor will also be able to choose a Manacor school if they want to… it doesn't make much sense. Now, a school's methodology, the services it offers, its complementary activities, and its prices will make a difference,” continues Cabrer.

Among the main risks pointed out by the City Council and the Manacor educational community are the increase in school segregation, "as certain families could concentrate in specific schools. An increase in travel is also foreseen, with more dependence on private vehicles, more traffic, and more difficulties for families." Added to this is the uncertainty about school transport and possible lack of coordination with municipal services that also operate by zones, such as Social Services and educational support programs.

Lack of dialogue and measures

One of the points that has generated the most consensus in the criticism is the way the measure has been promoted. In fact, educational centers received the information once the decision had already been made. This situation became clear in a meeting that recently took place in Manacor with the management teams of Infant and Primary Education centers, in which a “deep and shared” concern was evident, which the mayor Miquel Oliver and a municipal representation later expressed to the councilor Antoni Vera in Ciutat, with little success.

Faced with this scenario, the City Council has decided to go beyond the political stance and take legal action. The extraordinary plenary session of last week approved formulating a prior requirement to the Ministry so that the new zoning is not applied and the current system is maintained. This step, based on contentious administrative legislation, is the first before a possible appeal for review if the request is not successful, before May, when the enrollment process opens.