I am feeling sad. La Cantonera was a beautiful project in the Canaries run by charismatic and committed school leaders. We were not working with them directly but they were friends. Now the government is pressuring to close the school down.
The town hall tells them that the land their school is on does not have the right permits.
The public prosecutor tells them that all children that are registered in the school must be enrolled in official schools. If not, the Social Services can step in and take those children away from their parents within 24 hours.
Nothing about this situation is good. The project seemed to have a solid base in good practice, there were trained teachers in the school and the parents were all on board.
Like I said, we were not involved directly in this project and do not know the precise details, but it makes me sad when children are forced into conformity, when parents are bullied into putting their children into schools they do not want.
I’m not sure there is much we can more than give moral support, but I am sure the school leaders would be grateful for any show of support on their Facebook page. Take a moment and say a kind word.
https://www.facebook.com/LaCantonera/
What do you need?
What do you need to make your case for a school? It seems that a school will be vulnerable to the whims of a Prosecutor until a precedent is set. Let’s be clear about this. There are schools with less coherent visions and less qualified staff than La Cantonera that continue to function in other parts of Spain and Europe.
It is simply not just that religious schools and superstitious schools are encouraged when schools that offer freedom are hounded. It is simply not just.
Thanks for your support. We are still waiting for good news from the town hall!! Certainly, we are all heart broken.
My initial reaction to this was one of outrage at the fact that social services feel that they can be justified in terrifying these parents into action with the threat of ‘do x or we will take your kids away within 24 hours’. It seems like such a brutal tactic.
My deeper worry is that such cases add another layer of complexity and concern for parents who want to follow a non-traditional educational path. In thinking about where to educate our little ones, I have mainly been focussed on pedagogical matters, closely followed by consideration of the suitability of the team running the project. The ongoing economic viability or sustainability of the project/school is something that also crossed my mind. But I was naively assuming that once a project had been approved by local authorities, and had been running for a few years, the chances of its licence to operate being whimsically pulled was low.
I think I had now better add ‘due diligence on relationship with town hall’ to my list – but in reality, how much security can any amount of background research offer, when faced with the demon of abuse of power justified by conformity. I hope that the authorities in this case get the fight that they deserve.
I agree with you. The fact that it is not the same throughout Europe or even Spain makes it all the more irritating and confusing. Small schools are powerless against local bureaucrats.
Thanks for your well-reasoned response!