Parents oppose the departure of teachers from Maastricht
After the students of Porta Mosana College in Maastricht, parents are also protesting the transfer of 45 teachers from the school. The parents are protesting against the Limburg Secondary Education (LVO) school board: they want the transfers to be reversed and are arguing for a more thoughtful plan.
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The parents are united in the 'WijzijnPorta' platform and have their own website with a manifesto on it. Through a petition -which has already been signed more than two thousand times-, the media and local politicians are opposing LVO's plans to transfer a total of 125 teachers and ten full-time jobs of support staff from Maastricht to other LVO schools in the region due to shrinkage. The teachers and support staff who have to go to another school heard about this just before the May holidays. This was based on the last-in, first-out principle.
The plans of LVO are going 'too fast and too drastic' and are an 'acute threat to the quality of education', the parents write in their statement. Porta Mosana College has been hit hard by the general financial malaise in education in Maastricht. 'Teachers are shuffled between schools and they are blinded by the last in, first out principle without thinking about the consequences.'
Teachers are shuffled between schools and they are blinded by the last in, first out principle without thinking about the consequences.
Today message also newspaper The Limburger that the protest swells. Parents and students of Porta Mosana College formed a human chain around City Hall yesterday to express their protest. There is also protest at Bonnefanten College, another LVO school. Students are there the facebook page 'The Bonnefanten College is empty' started to draw attention to the 21 teachers of their school who have to move to another location. The students also held a meeting in the school auditorium yesterday to thank the teachers who have to leave. 'This has consequences for every student', the students write. Especially because many teachers have built good relationships with the students.
Earlier on Jeffreye Vossen, member of LVO's central management, said that there is relief, resignation and disappointment among the teaching staff. Vossen also said in that message that the measures are necessary because there is a decline and because people from the region are opting for other schools, for example in Belgium. In recent years, the schools in Maastricht have also not allowed their staff to keep pace with the declining number of pupils. 'We have no choice but to straighten this out,' says Vossen.
