Preparing for a Successful School Year in Lot-et-Garonne: Investments and Initiatives for College Students

How to present this 2023-2024 school year in the colleges of Lot-et-Garonne?

Sophie Borderie, president of the departmental council. “As far as departmental competence is concerned, namely essentially buildings, the working environment and school catering, the start of the new school year in the 28 public colleges of Lot-et-Garonne is looking good! This is also in many ways a counterweight to the growing anxiety of parents for the future of their children.
Faced with inflation and growing inequalities in our country, we are doing everything we can to ensure that the college is a place of social justice, where everyone can learn in good conditions, be provided with the appropriate equipment and supervised by staff. effective and benevolent departmental technical and catering staff, eating quality local products to your heart’s content… In short, the departmental council is doing everything possible to promote the success of our 12,000 middle school students, 3,000 of whom will be entering their first year of 6th grade. We are ready and for this I warmly thank all the department agents who have been hard at work during the summer to carry out routine maintenance work and ensure the best possible welcome on D-Day.
We have made young people a priority and I usually say that middle school is a key moment in schooling, where many things are at stake in terms of training, education and also citizenship. The public policies deployed under the aegis of our vice-president in charge of educational policies Nicolas Lacombe and our departmental adviser for youth Emilie Maillou, attest to our determination.”

Where are your investments mainly?

“Our first investment unquestionably relates to the 2020-2025 College Plan. We are devoting 83 million euros to it. To date, more than half of the work has been completed or is in progress. And then we decided to recently add a section for the renovation of the gymnasiums, the methods and deployment of which we are currently refining.
To this should be added nearly 5 million euros devoted to operating grants (increased this year to help establishments cope with inflation and in particular the increase in energy costs) and supplies of equipment and furniture.
But our investments are not limited to buildings. We have also initiated an ambitious e-colleges plan for which we have doubled the annual envelope, to bring it to one million euros and thus accelerate the renewal of the computer park and the deployment of mobile classrooms (tablets, laptops, etc.).

Finally, without drawing up an exhaustive list, I would like to emphasize the investments we are making to improve the purchasing power of families. In this new school year, everyone is talking about inflation and the difficulties families have to cope with. Well, the county council works constantly and sustainably to relieve parents with a view to equity and social justice. Hence the price of the meal lowered during the last two back-to-school periods so as not to exceed €2 while maintaining the quality of the “From 47 on our plates” program, hence the generalization of distributors of free periodic protection that a number significant number of young girls do not have the means to pay for themselves, hence the sector of reconditioning computers resold at solidarity prices to low-income families, hence also the Chèque asso whose terms we are currently reviewing, hence the Pass’ good behavior for the oldest… As you can see, in terms of youth, education and support for families, the Department does not pay for itself with words: it acts…”

How do the colleges make it possible to deploy the department’s policy, for example in the field of secularism or equality?

“As I implied, college is the school of life. It is the place of construction of citizenship, the moment of the transition to adolescence, with its transformations and learning often decisive for the evolution towards adulthood.
This is why we have made the choice, in Lot-et-Garonne, to also invest in this field, going beyond the strict obligations of our competences, in connection with National Education of course and partners from the world of associations and popular education, whom I sincerely thank for their work alongside us. This involves the departmental youth council, whose work is unanimously acclaimed, or even the Educational Convention comprising 150 citizen pathways around these themes of secularism, citizenship, but also culture, the environment, fight against discrimination and gender equality.

On this last subject, moreover, to which I am particularly attached as you know, we have conducted a fundamental approach (beyond the generalization of distributors of free periodic protection) by designing with a group of school nurses a booklet suitable for young people (girls and boys) to break down taboos on menstruation, help them talk about it and make it no longer a subject of ridicule or discrimination. I will go in person at the start of the school year to deliver it, alongside our vice-president Marylène Paillarès, whose work I salute, in a few establishments.
Finally, I would like to highlight a vector that may be less obvious at first glance but whose educational and civic impact is real: initiatives that are now well known such as Chœur en scène or the Printemps des arts de la scène. I have always been struck by the strength of what can be brought by the requirement of an artistic performance, the group dynamics, the surpassing of oneself… each experience, from the creations to the stage, being for these young people one more step towards greater humanity and solidarity. »