Shortly before the school bell, Cornelia Mayer admits that she got a little nervous. In a few minutes she was supposed to appear in front of a second grader at the Sigoho-Marchwart elementary school in Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn. “I thought to myself: Are the children good? Are they quiet? And what do I do when everyone starts shouting?” Mayer says. These are the thoughts that many teachers have before their first lesson. But Cornelia Mayer is not a teacher at all – but a trained children’s nurse.
The mother from Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn is one of those parents who have been helping out at school since the beginning of February. The reason: Because of corona diseases, quarantines and pregnancies, she was missing several teachers, says Rector Brigitte Gruber. Normally, schools in such situations receive support from educators from the district’s mobile reserve. But this is currently exhausted. And even distributing the children to other classes – according to Gruber, this is how staff shortages have been overcome in the past – is currently not allowed due to the Corona requirements.
When several colleagues dropped out, Rector Brigitte Gruber started a call to the parents.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
“I already warned in the first parents’ council meeting of this school year that this situation would arise,” says Brigitte Gruber, who is also the chairwoman of the Bavarian Teachers’ Association in the Munich-Land district. After all, according to her, there was already a teacher shortage in elementary and middle schools before the outbreak of the pandemic. “Corona is now just like a magnifying glass for this problem.” Accordingly, she clarified at an early stage with the school authority that, in an emergency, parents can also step in as temporary workers – in order to maintain face-to-face teaching. This must be the top priority, Gruber emphasizes, especially in view of the experiences in times of closed schools. “In distance teaching, content simply cannot be conveyed so well,” says the rector. “And social life is also lost if you only see each other on the screen.”
Three weeks ago, several teachers were absent due to the pandemic, and Brigitte Gruber then started a call among parents who had previously signaled their willingness to help out. Since then, mothers and fathers have also been in the classrooms of the elementary school – but not as substitute teachers, but as supervisors, emphasizes the principal. She relies on a rotation system: while two of the three classes in one grade are taught by female teachers, the students in the third grade do their work in silence – under the supervision of their parents. In the following school hours, this then changes the classroom, just like the professionals, so that all children learn new material and repeat it in the silent work.
Illnesses, pregnancy, quarantine – the mobile reserve is used up
“The commitment of the parents is really unbelievable”, praises Brigitte Gruber. “We even have a working mother who helps out and then does her work in the evening.” Thanks to the commitment of the parents, the Sigoho-Marchwart elementary school has been able to maintain comprehensive face-to-face teaching – unlike several elementary and middle schools in the district. “We currently have five classes in distance learning due to staffing problems,” says Ursula Löwe, head of the education authority in the Munich district, which is responsible for 47 primary and 13 middle schools and five independent schools. The district’s own mobile reserve amounts to around 1,600 teaching hours and is constantly being increased by people moving up, says Löwe. “But it is currently used up due to illness, pregnancy and quarantine.” To what extent other schools rely on parents to bridge bottlenecks, she does not know, says the director of the school board. “This option is available to the school principals, in agreement with the parents’ association, in compliance with all regulations regarding Corona, and they do not have to report it to us.”
In any case, at the Sigoho-Marchwart elementary school, Brigitte Gruber assumes that, given the permanently tense staffing situation, parents will be relied on as temporary workers for a long time to come – like Cornelia Mayer. So far she has been at school on three mornings, next week there are three more assignments in the 2nd grades. Her initial nervousness quickly subsided, she says. “I enjoyed it and the children were all very good. I think they also knew that if I wasn’t there they wouldn’t be allowed to go to school anymore.”
As a small thank you for her commitment, Cornelia Mayer received a box of chocolates from the school. But something else is much more important to her: “It’s about the children being able to continue going to school,” emphasizes Cornelia Mayer. After all, the mother of three knows from her own painful experience: “Distance learning is an extreme burden – for the parents and for the children.”