T-shirts instead of students: CEIP Son Pisà families intensify protest against Miquel Roldán

PalmA row of children's t-shirts hung along the fence of the primary school playground has turned the CEIP Son Pisà into a heartbreaking image of protest this Friday. Each piece of clothing represents a child who has not entered class today. The action, organized by families at 9:00 AM —the usual start time of the school day—, is part of the strike they began on Tuesday to not bring their children to the school, in protest of the presence of Miquel Roldán, a teacher with a final ruling for harassment of a former minor student. The strike has massive support, and today 61% of students were absent, one point more than this Thursday.

The symbolic initiative has sought to put a face to the massive absence of students that has been repeated since the start of the protest. As the families have explained, the call to hang t-shirts responds to the desire to make the conflict visible beyond the classrooms: “All families who can will hang a children's t-shirt at 9 o'clock, the time when all the boys and girls should enter school under normal conditions. We will place them along the entire barrier of the primary schoolyard, symbolically representing all the children who will not go there due to the situation”.

The conflict was triggered by the teacher's incorporation this week to cover a substitution, a decision that generated an immediate reaction among families, who consider their presence incompatible with the safety and well-being of the students. In a few days, the situation has been escalating: on Tuesday the strike began, with notable follow-through from the first moment, and since then there have been successive displays of rejection and protest actions at the school gates.

Education makes a move

Faced with growing pressure, the Ministry of Education urgently summoned the teacher to hold a meeting and analyze the situation, as ARA Balears exclusively reported. The case is in a complex legal scenario, since, despite a conviction for harassment of a minor, it does not entail disqualification from teaching, a fact that limits legal options to remove him from the classroom.

This gap is one of the main reasons for indignation among families, who claim that current regulations do not sufficiently guarantee the protection of minors in cases like this. Furthermore, they recall that it is not the first time that the teacher's presence in an educational center has generated conflict and mobilizations within the educational community.

Meanwhile, the center's operation continues to be conditioned by the absence of a significant portion of the student body and by a climate of uncertainty. Families insist that they will maintain the strike until there is a clear and effective solution. “It is not just a protest, it is a matter of safety,” they emphasize. With T-shirts still hanging as a visible symbol of the conflict, the organizers demand an immediate and forceful response from the Administration to guarantee an environment they consider safe and adequate for their children.