What is happening at Louis Pasteur elementary school in Saint-Denis? Six teachers have been notified of their forced transfer. The director, appointed last September, was put “withdrawn from her function”. Anger is brewing in this establishment which will be on strike this Friday.
“We were in shock, we didn’t understand why now, when the climate had returned to calm and the school had been running since the new director“, wonders a first school teacher (who wished to remain anonymous) who is one of the six teachers sanctioned.
We are in the misunderstanding because it is we who have brought up serious shortcomings and the endangerment of students on the part of the director.
“I felt a very great injustice (…) and a total incomprehension“says another teacher who also learned of her transfer on Monday. She claims not to know the reasons which led the rectorate to make this decision.No one is able to tell us what we did. We weren’t listened to, we weren’t heard even though we were the ones who brought up the problems at the start“, she continues.
In this elementary school of 300 pupils classified in REP +, the climate deteriorated last September with the arrival of a new director.
“Many of us have been present for a long time by choice in this establishment. We are very invested. A new director arrived and the dysfunctions began very quickly, putting the students and ourselves in danger. Slanderous remarks have been made against us. We got bullied. No communication was possible. We tried to inform our hierarchy. We made more than 50 reports, to no avail. We ended up asserting a right of withdrawal for imminent danger”says the teacher.
An investigation is then carried out this fall by the rectorate of Créteil following the filing of complaints by the educational team. The verdict falls on April 4: 6 teachers automatically transferred from the start of the spring holidays and the director withdrawn from her position in order to “restore a climate of serenity in the school, conducive to learnings” according to the terms of the DSDEN, the Direction of the departmental services of National Education of Seine-Saint-Denis.
Two extremely rare measurements during the year confirms Caroline Marchand, co-secretary of SNUipp-FSU 93: “I have seen colleagues moved individually but moving six colleagues out of 19 teachers is not possible, it will destabilize the school which is in a difficult district, in an educational city, classified REP +. The students need to stability.”
For her, this measure, “taken in the interest of the service”, and which is not disciplinary according to the academic director, is a disguised sanction.
In letter written by the teaching team of the Pasteur schoolteachers say they have “reported to [leur] hierarchy the daily dangers for the pupils and for [eux]. We wrote over 120 pages of serious material. We explained and documented the assaults, humiliations, defamations, false accusations“, they write.
In a statement, the union Sud Education 93 also denounces “managerial practices going against the collective and cooperative functioning of the team, impediments to work (withholding of information, no access to equipment and premises), authoritarianism (non-compliance with the decisions of the council of teachers, prohibition outings) psychological pressure, humiliation in front of parents and students, lies, defamation and slanderous remarks, incitement to parents of students to produce writings or even file a complaint against teachers for slanderous reasons, and other serious professional misconduct, such as the falsification of parent-teacher elections“.
While the administrative investigation is launched, the director responds to an interview with a far-right monthly devoted to leftism at school. “On condition of anonymity, the director describes totally false and delusional situations that would take place in this school. These defamatory allegations implicate colleagues who are clearly named and recognizable. For some, their personal phone numbers are even identifiable. Colleagues ask to be protected by the rectorate and have filed a handrail“, denounces the union Sud Education 93.
“We reacted immediately as soon as the article was published in a far-right newspaper. Three colleagues are really targeted in this article. The investigation (administrative Editor’s note) had conclusions but in this climate, with the article and the video, the accompaniment should have been quite different and that is what we denounce today and that we support these colleagues“, abounds Caroline Marchand.
On the parents’ side, anger is also brewing. Following the announcement of the transfers, they occupied the school last Tuesday. Many of them have signed an online petition in support of teachers.
“We are flabbergasted, angry, revolted“says Mary.”Taking away his institute from students and especially students from 93 in a school classified as REP +, in the middle of the school year, is a solution that leads nowhere”, continues this parent of a student, also elected to the school council.
We are flabbergasted, angry, revolted
Like other parents, she is asking for the cancellation of the forced transfer of the six teachers. According to her, they are doing a good job. “My daughter is in CM1, she has been in this school since CP. The children are confident, they are valued, they feel ‘capable’ and they feel respected. I speak as a parent of a student, from what I observe in my daughter, what she tells me about her days, the relationships built with the teachers. Nothing is perfect, but what we see is good work, educational projects, such as the boy-girl equality project led by five of the six transferred teachers. During confinement, the institutes were present. When the children are sick, the teachers send the homework. This school is doing well, proof is that with the brand new director sent in urgently, everything is going well”, she concludes.
Contacted, the DSDEN affirms that “the teachers concerned were informed by mail on Monday April 4 and the adversarial procedure applies”. Adding that the continuity of public service is and will be ensured.
Educational continuity desired just as much by the mayor of the city, Mathieu Hanotin who, in a press release, said he had taken note of these measures. “State services have brought to my attention their desire to transfer seven members of the educational staff (six teachers and the director) in the interest of the service. This decision belongs to National Education and, in the best interests children, it was essential in view of serious and old dysfunctions which were presented to me”.
The school’s 19 teachers will be on strike tomorrow Friday. Parents of students will demonstrate in front of the DSDEN in Bobigny to show their support for the six transferred school teachers.
Another strike call was launched by an inter-union teacher in the department next Tuesday, the day when transferred teachers must consult their file at the Departmental Directorate of National Education.
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