With photocopies and a lot of patience. This is how the fourth and sixth grade students of the Rey Pelayo Primary School have been working for more than a month after having stayed inside the school after most of their textbooks were closed. The deficiencies are also suffered by students in the third year of Primary School, who do not have their books either, but do have their exercise booklets. These notebooks were bought again after the collapse at the same time as those used by students in Early Childhood Education and first and second grade, who only use these documents for their classes. The shortage in sixth and fourth seems to be solved thanks to the solidarity of other schools. Seven centers throughout Asturias have donated books from their documentary collection to Rey Pelayo. The center is still waiting for the final report on the damage to the school to find out if they can access the building to recover other essential materials. “Solidarity is being very important,” says Carla Gallego, the president of the Association of mothers and fathers.
The fact that there are students who do have materials and others who do not is explained, in part, by the change in education law, but also by luck itself, since the fifth-year Primary students took almost all their things home the day before the classroom collapse. With the entry into force of the LOMLOE, the schools renewed the books of the odd courses in September. While the change in pairs was postponed to the 2023-2024 academic year. As from next year the fourth and sixth books will be different, the families chose not to buy them again. “In the end, public money is not free and we did not want it to be acquired to throw it away in a short time,” explains Gallego.
The situation is different in other courses. Preschool students and first and second grade students use fillable exercise booklets. That is, they only have one use and cannot be recycled. Many have remained in the center, but in this case it was decided to buy them again. In other words, these booklets have been purchased twice. One, by the families at the beginning of the year, and now, by the school with public funds, after the collapse.
The most convoluted is in the third year of Primary, since it is a course that uses both booklets and books. As it is an odd course, they have new books. But for now, these have not been bought again and they cannot enter King Pelayo for them either. Hence, the arrival of the final report is so important for the school and also for the families. Some of them already claimed in the parade on Thursday that some were “soulless” due to the lack of materials.
The shortage in the fourth and sixth years is on the way to being solved thanks to the donations from other schools promoted by the AMPA and by King Pelayo. Copies have been donated by Eduardo Martínez Torner, Alfonso Camín and La Escuelona, in Gijón. Also Narciso Suárez, Germán Fernández Ramos and Buenavista III from Oviedo, as well as the poet Antón de Mari-Reguera from Candás (Carreño). If necessary, the Clarín school also applied and so did many others. On the other hand, the Santillana publishing house has opened up the digital licenses to the center in order to also have easy access to the content necessary to teach the classes. “In the end, we are going to have a surplus,” adds Carla Gallego, who, like the rest of the Rey Pelayo community, awaits the final report.
