Kitas: A parent representation for Bavaria – Bavaria

Parents of daycare children should be able to have a say in state politics in the future. For a long time, the Family Ministry had resisted having its own advisory board, as is common in most other federal states. Just in time for the election campaign, however, there is apparently a rethink: “We want active parent participation,” said Bavaria’s Family Minister Ulrike Scharf (CSU) on Thursday. She wants to create “fixed structures” for this with a state parents’ advisory board. The Advisory Board should be informed about the development of childcare and should also be able to bring in its own “impulses and ideas”.

The new body will have 15 members and will represent all childcare facilities, from crèches and kindergartens to after-school care, day care and support facilities. After all, 130,000 euros per year are planned for this. This is what the draft says, which is currently being sent to the associations for their comments.

In organized parenthood, people are positively surprised by the initiative, for which some parents have been fighting in vain for years. “Decisions made by state politicians have a direct impact on our children in the daycare centers,” says Daniel Gromotka. The 45-year-old has a ten-year-old daughter who goes to after-school care after school. He has been involved in various parents’ representatives since his daughter’s time at crèche. He is currently the chairman of the joint parents’ advisory board of municipal after-school care centers and day care centers in Munich.

The chairman of the Joint Parents’ Advisory Council of municipal after-school care centers and day care centers in Munich, Daniel Gromotka, has long been fighting for representation at the state level.

(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)

The people of Munich have joined forces with parent councils from Augsburg, Nuremberg and Ingolstadt to form a joint network. However, they are not an official state representative. But they need it. Because whether it’s about the serious shortage of staff and the therefore limited opening hours in many places or about subsidies – many questions of daycare policy are negotiated at the state level. The fact that the state government is now reacting is a success, he says. However, he is critical of the details of the design.

According to the current plans, the members of the new body are to be “proposed by the associations active in the field of child day care”. In this way, the State Ministry wants to ensure that representatives of various institutions get a chance and that the relationship between town and country is preserved. The network of parent councils considers this to be undemocratic. Those who speak for parenthood should be chosen by the parent representatives themselves, you can find there.

“Does the government want to avoid such uncomfortable press?”

However, the parents are even more disturbed by the design of the planned body. Because not only its management but also the public relations work of the state parents’ advisory board “is carried out by the responsible state ministry”, according to the draft. “Does the government want to avoid such uncomfortable press?” Gromotka asks himself.

In any case, parents can be uncomfortable. Most recently they were in the Munich fish affair. In an invitation to tender for catering in the municipal daycare centers, the city had removed fish from the menu. No more fish sticks on the children’s fork? The parents protested. The Picture reported, and even Prime Minister Markus Söder was suddenly interested in the menu of the Munich day-care center children.

So it’s better not to get too much press wind from the parents’ group? When asked, the ministry emphasizes that they only want to provide operational support in press work. “The body should be supported by the responsible state ministry to find out the opinions of parents, to carry out queries or to coordinate networking with parents’ councils.”

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