Colegio San José Obrero

CEIP San José Obrero (San José Obrero School) opened its doors in 1972 welcoming children coming from the Las Hernandades, La Carrasca, El Cerezo, Los Principes, and Polígono Norte neighborhoods of Sevilla. All of these neighborhoods have grown outside the city walls and have a dense population of working class residents. There have been many changes over the course of these years, especially in regard to the population that attends the school. From 1972 to now, the diversity of students, in terms of ethnicity and origin, has reached the point of being comprised of 49% immigrant children, representing 30 different nationalities.

The year 1997 was key to the current identity of the school. The Delegation of Education directed Romani students to attend CEIP San José Obrero and other schools in the zone. These students were for the most part portuguese in origin, coming from El Vacie, one of the oldest slum settlements in all of Europe. Without any previous preparation on the part of the professors, and without sufficient assignment of resources or planning/organization specific to serving these students, the center welcomed 56 students between 5-12 years old who had never before been part of a school system. In a few days the school climate deteriorated: students were in conflict, parents complained about the aggressions suffered by their children, and families took their children out of the school to take them to a different one where there weren’t Romani children. In 5 years, matriculation reduced by 30% from 542 students to 400.

In 2002 a new phase started for the school: there was a change to the team of directors, renewal of a large percentage of the staff, and an agreement was established with the administration to assign the school a professor specific to its needs, increased its resources, and distribute the students from the settlement to other schools, avoiding the ghetto-ization of the school. In addition, starting that year foreign immigrant students began arriving in the neighborhood. The “stamp” of Romani students was therefore diluted and the school transformed into a school for foreigners, reaching 50% immigrant students.

The experience of change lived in those years affirms that inclusive education, based on collaborative work and the participation of the educational community, is vital in order to develop quality education in schools facing greater difficulties with achievement. There always needs to be a holistic vision of learning that not only improves performance and motivation, but also self-esteem, coexistence, and the school climate. It’s complicated to summarize in few words the strategies and methodologies of change, as well as the school-wide proposals that we’ve put into practice to accomplish this success in our work, but it can be distilled to three main principles:

1. The involvement and attention of families: aiming to balance work and family life, the Plan for the support of the family. By giving families total coverage, opening our doors from 7:30am to 7:30pm, we completely eradicated absenteeism. This plan also involved widening and improving our extra-curricular activities, such as the offering of a dining room, which currently complements our other proposals, Solidarity and guarantee of nutrition and the Plan for Communal Living which involves parents signing an agreement that specifies the norms of communal living of our school.  
2. The improvement of outcomes: in order to ensure equality of opportunities and results for all possible, a Plan for educational compensation was created that reinforces support teams and modifies organizational structures of the school. This organization is sustained by the mediation of external agents, as well as participative, active methodologies that have strong impact on collaborative work, which includes the cooperation of teachers, students, families, and other entities in the neighborhood. In keeping with this, we’ve started to do project-based work, give more space to core skills, and design activities in which parents can be directly involved.
3. Attention to diversity: A Plan of welcoming was organized that involves the participation of the entire educational community. This includes reception by school management, visits to the school accompanied by other parents, and the appointment of a mentor for newly-arrived students. This plan for welcoming is always in action, given that matriculation to the school is continuous, occurring at all parts of the year.

Unfortunately, today this kind of inclusive effort is now almost impossible to carry out due to the new Law of Education going into effect (LOMCE 8/2013, effective 12/9/2013). This law imposes final examinations to be taken prior to graduation, without taking into account the diversity of the student body. In addition, the policies of cutbacks of the Council of Education and of the Regional Government of Andalucía, which drastically reduce the staffing of teachers and the resources to the school, make the maintenance of these support systems, which are so crucial for an education based on equality, increasingly inviable.

Source: Miguel Rosa Castejón, Pedagogo y maestro, director del CEIP San José Obrero de Sevilla. Source