Systemic solutions and continuous development?
We, the community of the Construction School Complex, in the context of the recent media speculation concerning our school, and in view of the rather unclear response of Starost Dariusz Kwaśniewski to our Open Letter, would like to respond to a recent article County Education – systemic solutions and continuous development, which appeared on the official website of the Bolesławiec County Office.
Let us recall that our Open Letter (available at: https://www.facebook.com/zsb2boleslawiec/posts/1641435532782053) concerned our anxiety over rumors about the closure of one of Bolesławiec’s upper-secondary schools in order to obtain a new facility for the County Special Education and Care Complex.
The Construction School Complex, housed in three buildings, was among the schools selected for “redistribution.” Architecturally, they are absolutely not adapted to serve people with disabilities: narrow corridors, cramped stairwells, a small number of classrooms on each floor, no gymnasium, and so on. Adapting such a space to the needs of students with disabilities would require enormous funds (if it were possible at all, since in our view it would not be possible to fully adapt the ZSB buildings to standards appropriate and sufficient for children with disabilities and their caregivers).
In a text published on 27 November 2015 on the County Office website, we read: “The schools of Bolesławiec County are among the best in Lower Silesia. For years, both general-education and vocational schools have ranked among the leaders in external examination results (...). Maintaining the position of leader is a difficult task, especially when those in charge are struggling with merciless demographics—the continually declining number of students. Illustrating this relentless process, one might venture to say that in recent years two small schools have ‘disappeared’ from the county map. Hard statistical data confirm this (...) Only someone very unreasonable would not seek a solution in this situation.”
Two issues are raised here: the very good results of county schools compared with the voivodeship as a whole, and “merciless demographics.”
What does the Construction School Complex look like in light of the report summarizing the operation of Bolesławiec’s educational institutions?
Here are some statistics published on the official Bolesławiec County website: attendance rates (88.5% highest, ZSB 80.09%, 73.83% lowest), promotion rates (99.57% highest, ZSB 97.1%, 86% lowest), and the stability of student numbers during the educational process. With 17 classes, the latter indicator for our school is -16 (compared with -35, -32 and -27 at other institutions), which means that 0.94% of students leave each class in a given school year. We also draw attention to the low number of unsatisfactory and unacceptable conduct grades among our students compared with the county as a whole (the lowest number of all vocational schools in the county). In practice, this means that young people study in stable conditions and deserve precisely such conditions.
The core of our argument should be the results of the matura examinations: the 83.08% result in the 2014/2015 school year places us second among county schools (which, in fact, together achieve the third-best result in the voivodeship, and we can confidently state that the students and teachers of ZSB deserve much of the credit), well above the voivodeship average. We also rank second in the proportion of graduates who sit the examination compared with the total number of graduates.
The results of the vocational examinations are not entirely satisfactory to us, since we still have much to do in areas such as landscape architecture. Nevertheless, we believe that the fact that we are an Examination Centre and the only school in the region providing training in such strategic fields as construction and surveying, together with the considerable funds allocated to equipping our institution, will soon enable us to join the absolute leading group.
The potential of the Construction School Complex’s teaching staff speaks in favor of this. According to information published on the Bolesławiec County website, it was ZSB that had the largest number of employees obtain qualifications to teach a second subject in the past year, and the largest number of our teachers are also taking part in proceedings for a higher professional promotion level. Which good, professional manager—and we want to believe that the employees of Bolesławiec County are such managers—would decide to close such a developing team? If we add expenditure on teacher development, and the funds spent by the County on ZSB teachers were among the highest, this places the rationality of the County Office’s plans under a major question mark.
In recent years, substantial financial resources have been allocated to school workshops and the additional equipment of vocational classrooms, which will ultimately improve the quality of vocational education, provided that these investments and the potential of the workshops are not wasted by redistributing them as a result of closing or relocating the school. This includes, among other things, sums obtained במסגרת the Modernization of Vocational Education Centres project:
In addition, specialist surveying equipment, accessories for landscape architects and foresters, various computer programs, laptops, and so on were purchased for students studying various fields at ZSB that are in demand on the national and European labor markets. This was a huge amount of money which, along with the dissolution of the institution, would be thrown away.
What about “merciless demographics”?
According to data and forecasts published by the Bolesławiec County Office, the number of students in our county will begin to grow gradually next year, reaching a record level in eight years. Is it therefore sensible to get rid of a school and its infrastructure when, in a few years, it will be necessary to deal with a problem of a 50% “surplus” of students (from 800 to 1,200)? In our view, this is short-sighted policy that postpones the problem, perhaps for subsequent authorities, while generating enormous costs that all county residents—including voters of the currently governing coalition—will have to bear.
A separate issue is the planned education reform, which assumes the phasing out of lower-secondary schools. This will increase the number of students in secondary and vocational schools, because one additional year group will enter school buildings. What then? Will it become necessary to obtain and adapt another building for a school or schools?
We want to believe in the good intentions of the body responsible for our school. After all, we jointly achieved the success described on the Bolesławiec County website: “(...) let me remind you that our upper-secondary schools have been among the best for years, as we have demonstrated many times (quality of teaching—matura and vocational examination results, excellently equipped vocational classrooms, good infrastructure, hundreds of completed educational projects, numerous above-standard activities, and so on—emphasizes Bolesławiec Starost Dariusz Kwaśniewski).”
We will not achieve such results if we are redistributed among other institutions. To date, we have carried out a substantial part of ongoing school renovations using “our own funds”—entrepreneurs and students’ parents help us, and teachers themselves get involved. The school principal is an excellent manager and a good employer. First and foremost, he cares about the students’ well-being. For them, he obtains European Union funding so that they can go on month-long work placements abroad, which immeasurably increases their professional and life skills. The figures are impressive here as well: under the Leonardo da Vinci program, as many as 290 students went abroad (the value of the projects we implemented was €658,984), while under Erasmus+, financed by POWER VET, 30 students have so far gone abroad (project value: €68,144), and an agreement is being signed for another 30 students to leave in the second quarter of 2016 (agreement value: €68,144).
We do not want harm to children with disabilities. We do not want harm to our students. We do not want public funds wasted. We want to work honestly for the good of us all. We believe that the employees of Bolesławiec County have the same intentions.
To avoid misunderstandings and omissions, we will meet at the Construction School Complex next Thursday, 3 December 2015, at 3:30 p.m., with our students’ parents, local councilors and the media. We invite the Starost of Bolesławiec County, Dariusz Kwaśniewski; Alicja Krzyszczak, head of the County Education and Promotion Department; and everyone interested.
We will return to this topic.
ZSB/ii