The Kléber college in Strasbourg remained closed this Thursday and teachers demonstrated. The reason, a strike movement was launched after a French teacher was threatened with death by a student at the beginning of the week.
“One of our colleagues was threatened with death on Tuesday afternoon by a third grade student whose cell phone he had confiscated. The student told him: “I’m bringing friends back from the exit, I’ll kill you,” explained Gilles Comte, history and geography teacher, who participated in this gathering “to show our solidarity”. According to him, there were 37 strikers out of 38 teachers having classes on Thursday.
“It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, there are lots of incidents,” continued the teacher, specifying that since the start of the school year a “colleague was attacked by a former student who had entered in the establishment with two other students”, and that there were also “three explosions of firecrackers inside the establishment”.
“There is no communication, no support from management, we have the impression of being abandoned,” regretted Mr. Comte. He specified that his fellow professor targeted by the death threats is a teacher who “is extremely involved” and who was “very touched” by the incident. He filed a complaint on Tuesday afternoon and has since been on sick leave.
“We can no longer do our job well”
Tuesday “a student started to insult him, threaten him, tell him: ‘I’m going to wait for you at the outing with people,'” said a student, who witnessed the scene. A precautionary measure was taken against the student who made the threats, who will not be able to return to the establishment until he appears before the disciplinary council on December 19.
“We can no longer do our job well,” lamented Charlotte Serisier, French teacher, citing the “insults that recur very regularly”, “the systematic lateness of students” or even the “triggering of fire alarms” which has become “the fashionable game since the start of the school year”.
“I don’t feel safe with everything that’s going on. The firecrackers going off, the fire alarms all the time – It feels like there’s a fire –, the death threats. It’s too much,” also testified a 5th grade student.
With some 700 students, Kléber College is a “large establishment, with increased social diversity, which is good. We welcome students who come from REP + but we do not have suitable resources,” described Ms. Serisier, who carried a sign asking for “means to support all our students”.
“These are students who come from three quarters of priority education districts, therefore, who come out of conditions of 20-24 students per class. They arrive here, there are 30 of them (per class). We can’t help them all,” added Mathieu Dieudonné, PE teachers. The establishment, one of the largest in Strasbourg, also hosts a high school and preparatory classes.
Jean-Pierre Gavrilovic, head of the Snalc Alsace union, indicated that he had been received by the head of the establishment on November 23 “following the sharp deterioration in working conditions reported by colleagues” but that she had “kicked off” .
Contacted, the rectorate did not react immediately.