There is nothing to be said about the requirement: “The students test themselves under the guidance of the educational staff in the school,” is the instruction from Education Senator Sandra Scheeres (SPD). But it doesn’t have to stop there.
Their own parliamentary group wanted to “cash in” Scheeres’ decision to use the teachers for the tests, the Tagesspiegel learned from the House of Representatives on Friday – one day after the relevant Senate decision. There was also criticism of Scheeres ‘requirements from the State Parents’ Committee, against which the school administrators sent different signals.
“All colleagues are in favor of testing in the school because our safety is at stake,” reported Astrid-Sabine Busse from the elementary school on the Köllnische Heide. The staff will be instructed by the team that has already accompanied the rapid tests in the college. Busse is the chairman of the Berlin School Management Interest Group (IBS).
In the Secondary School Heads Association, opinions differ, so they advocate that each school can decide for itself. The vice-chairman, Sven Zimmdienstleistungen, has already tested 600 students at his Friedensburg School and has had good experiences with them. For tests at home, he would have expected “blanket confirmations signed by parents” or that many students would not even bring these pieces of paper with them.
The schools have one week to prepare
In contrast, the Association of Senior Academic Directors (VOB) categorically calls for testing at home: Unvaccinated staff cannot be expected to teach testing at school. The colleagues were “extremely insecure” after the vaccination, which was believed to be safe, had failed.
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The schools have a week to install the new process, because it will take effect from April 19. Until then, the tests will take place at home – as originally specified before the holidays.
This determination had long been criticized by the SPD parliamentary group. She appealed to experts such as Charité Professor Frank Mockenhaupt, who had pointed out the risks of home testing: Experience from London had shown that the willingness to test in some milieus was only 30 percent. Mockenhaupt had therefore suspected that sooner or later one would have to switch to school testing and also referred to Austria, which had already shifted the process to schools in February.
[„Wer sich weigert, darf nicht am Unterricht teilnehmen“: So läuft es mit den „Nasenbohrer-Tests“ in Österreich.]
“There is almost only positive feedback”, reported on Friday Herbert Weiß, the chairman of the Austrian Union for general secondary schools (AHS). There is “significantly more security”. The initial concerns are “gone” – although there are still many unvaccinated high school and middle school teachers in Austria: the test is carried out at the open window.
The SPD’s open criticism of the senator
Senator Scheeres did not draw any conclusions from Mockenhaupt’s reference to London and Austria, but initially left it with the determination of domestic testing. According to reports from the SPD parliamentary group, precious time was lost in making arrangements for testing in schools: You have to look for “allies” like the Red Cross in order to spare the school employees this task .
Scheeres’ spokesman said that the education administration I was already looking for external testers – for example from the DRK and the Pharmacists’ Association – during the teacher tests. In the end, it boiled down to training the company’s own staff because the external staff had already been deployed elsewhere.
The State Parents’ Committee has questions
The State Parents’ Committee raised a number of questions about the further procedure on Friday. It was about questions of data protection, the care of children who tested positive after a possibly positive test result became known, or legal questions. The education administration expressly announced further information to the schools.
At the Senate meeting on Thursday, it was not just about the school test, but also about the fact that the seventh to ninth graders are only allowed to return to the schools when the high school graduates are gone. The State Parents’ Committee also criticized this:
“We have numerous schools without a grammar school upper level and also schools with separate buildings for the upper level”. It is not understandable that the middle grades would have to wait until the Abitur graduates leave: “We cannot understand a link with the Abitur classes here,” said the committee.
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