The weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays had hit many schools hard. In some cases, the lessons were almost impossible to manage because so many teachers were absent with the flu or other illnesses. “Before Christmas it was crazy,” says Markus Martini, head of the Ismaning high school, looking back. This wave of viruses seems to have subsided in the new year, to the relief of the headmasters in the Munich district. Despite this, schools still have a lot of challenges ahead. At least there is good news: Corona is hardly an issue at the moment.
In the run-up to Christmas, flu and other viruses in particular had put teachers and students out of action. That got better over the holidays. “At the moment it’s limited,” says Gabriele Frohberg-Hintzen, who heads the secondary school in Aschheim. But the schools are constantly feeling the lack of staff, which is not only criticized by the teachers’ association in Bavaria. “So far we have been able to cover the regular lessons – goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,” says Ismaningen headmaster Martini; but one or the other funding program, such as the intensification lessons that were introduced with the G 8 at grammar schools, had to be scaled back at the Ismaninger grammar school. Nevertheless, Martini is optimistic: “We try to master all challenges.”
Headmaster Markus Martini from the Ismaning Gymnasium is optimistic about the remaining school year despite many challenges.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
“Fortunately, sick leave is not very high here at the moment,” says Beate Brenner, acting head of the Taufkirchen middle school. “That would lead to disaster.” A catastrophe because there are no longer any mobile reserves that could absorb failures. At the Taufkirchner middle school, they help themselves in such cases by having some teachers work an hour or two more or by dividing up classes if the teacher is ill. Skipping lessons is not an option, especially not in the all-day program, as Brenner says, where parents have to be able to rely on the children being looked after up to a certain time. “It always works somehow when it has to go,” says the Taufkirchner rector.
When it comes to the lack of teachers, Brenner doesn’t sound desperate either. Sure, they would too. But the school authority doesn’t let the school management down, she says. So they reacted to the shortage by increasing the classes. “The divider used to be 24, now it’s 30,” she says. This means that a second class is formed only when there are more than 30 children in one class. The rector also relies on her team: “We have a great team and it works because we help together.”
The current high school year has lost the most face-to-face teaching
Brenner sees a challenge more in the bridging classes, in which students who have fled Ukraine are taught. There are two at her school, one for grades five and six, and another for grades seven through ninth. Because the children are listed as compulsory students, the school has to check their attendance every day. But if their parents don’t speak German, queries are difficult.
Director Armin Eifertinger from the Werner-Heisenberg-Gymnasium in Garching sees one of the biggest tasks for this year as preparing the current high school year for the exams. “This year’s high school graduates are among the students who have been away from face-to-face classes the longest because of Corona,” Eifertinger points out. The after-effects of the pandemic are still being felt. In the Ismaning Gymnasium, which opened in 2015, high school graduates will be dismissed for the first time this summer – a special situation that Headmaster Martini is looking forward to with anticipation. However, the switch back from G 8 to G 9 entailed a lot of organizational and content-related work for the grammar schools.
And some headmasters are demanding something else: Several schools in the district are facing construction work. For example, the ground-breaking ceremony for the expansion of the Aschheim secondary school, including the new school campus, has already taken place; work on the construction site is expected to start in the spring. The Ismaninger grammar school already has to plan the extension five years after it opened: due to the reintroduction of the G 9 and the large crowds, the school needs more rooms. And the middle school in Taufkirchen is even to be completely demolished and rebuilt in the foreseeable future. Schools will not calm down in 2023 either.