The entire teaching staff at the Hans Adlhoch School in Augsburg has been vaccinated three times. Nevertheless, Rector Sabine Stahl-Schnitzler is concerned about a possible departure from face-to-face teaching at primary and secondary schools. Two teachers got infected, which is relevant at a smaller school. “We can still do it. But if Omikron spreads further among the teaching staff, it will be difficult.”
And the children? A good 50 of the approximately 440 children are currently in quarantine or isolation, “of course the numbers are high”. But in her opinion, this is not due to the fact that the school is maintained. Rather, it is because “Omicron is so incredibly contagious and infections in the private sphere cannot be prevented”. An epidemic? Yes, the Rector thinks it might happen. “But that’s not the fault of the schools.”
The D-Word: Infestation. For a few weeks now, it has graced Twitter as a hashtag of cries of lamentation from parents and teachers. At the weekend in Bavaria, the incidence was more than 4000 among six to eleven year olds and almost 3000 among twelve to 15 year olds (although the values are no longer considered reliable). “We want to be given the clear answer: should schools be infested now?” asks Simone Fleischmann, President of the Bavarian Teachers’ Association (BLLV).
The Association of Philologists also said: If a quick endemic state is the political motto, “then it should be named that way.” The SPD health politician Ruth Waldmann says it all “comes down to an uncontrolled infection, you just avoid the horrible word contagion”. She complains: “There is a fire in the schools and the state government acts as if everything is taking its normal course.”
What is it about the thesis of the contamination? The Ministry of Culture does not want to respond to the word at all: neither to a question from Waldmann these days as to whether the contagion is “accepted” nor to the question of the SZ how they stand on this allegation. Instead, there is the explanation of the rules, as Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (FW) had defended after the recent cabinet. The “top priority” remains face-to-face teaching, with a view to the physical and mental well-being of children, there is no way around it. The “close-meshed safety net” with testing and ventilation makes this possible. More than 90 percent of all students were still in regular classes.
But there has been one change since Wednesday: In the case of larger outbreaks (around 50 percent), headmasters can send entire classes to distance learning for five days. You don’t have to wait for instructions from the health department. Infected students have to go home anyway, the rest of the class “can” classify the office as contact persons; otherwise, students whose course has a case may remain with intensified testing. Piazolo said that at around 50 percent, the presence “no longer makes sense in terms of school organization” (the Ministry of Social Affairs has set the mark at 20 percent for daycare groups). There are now isolated reports of school classes in which the 50 percent mark has been cracked – it is still too early for an interim conclusion, the ministry said on Friday. “Goodwill” for the regulation comes from the school family.
“We are basically in good spirits,” says Bernhard Rothauscher, director of the Goethe-Gymnasium Regensburg with more than 1,300 students. By the end of the week, one class was fully homeschooled. He does not assume that many will follow. Rothauscher does not want to speak of an accepted infection. He “feels like everyone is doing their best to avoid infection.” He endorses the requirement for on-site lessons “100 percent. We notice that after six months of school the children are much better positioned in terms of social behavior”. That is the most important thing, since the lessons themselves are secondary.
At Rector Stahl-Schnitzler in Augsburg, the 50 percent threshold does not yet apply in any class, although there is a total of almost a quarter of the children missing. She also wants to “maintain face-to-face classes for as long as possible”. In elementary schools in particular, one must also take into account the childcare situation provided by parents.
Of course, no one knows what will come next in this Omicron wave for teachers and students alike. Emergency preparations are now underway everywhere in Bavaria. Rothauscher reports about a digital practice day. If the company collapses, for which he has no indication at the moment, “of course we have to teach from home”. Parents’ newsletters from other schools already refer to the learning platforms. For imminent teacher changes or absences. “Even before Corona, schools had to cope with too few teaching staff,” reports the teachers’ association BLLV. This is now taking revenge in the pandemic, and face-to-face teaching “hangs by a thread”.
“Presence teaching is very important, especially after we missed an awful lot of lesson material,” says Fabia Klein, spokeswoman for the state student council. “But we think it’s wrong that the Minister of Education is sticking to it at all costs,” that’s “crass”. The criticism from the student representative, who is writing her Abitur this year, is directed against the 50 percent mark. “This threshold is too high. It is too late to only intervene when 16 children in a class of 32 are infected.” Klein would like more flexibility for headteachers. And for students: Anyone who does not want to come because they are ill or feel unsafe must also have the opportunity to take online lessons. You don’t always feel comfortable in the classroom at the moment.