The Terrassa City Council has asked families to remain calm after learning the first figures of school pre-enrollment for the next academic year, addressed this Monday in an extraordinary session of the Municipal School Council. The message comes after confirming that the situation is not the same in all stages and that the main focus of pressure is concentrated in the first year of ESO.
The paradox is that primary school faces the process with room to spare in places and groups maintained with reduced ratios, while secondary school faces more tension despite the limit of 30 students per classroom set in public schools by the government agreement signed at the beginning of the year. To that pressure is added the duplication of places by students who have requested a change of school.
Children's maintains all groups and gains margin for live enrollment
In early childhood education, supply has exceeded demand and the municipality has kept all groups open with the reduced ratios that had already been applied due to the decrease in students in recent years. This scenario leaves more capacity to absorb new enrollments outside the ordinary calendar.
Mireia Portero Ruiz, head of the OME, maintained that this margin will allow for more flexibility in accommodating live enrollment during the course. The current political agreement also sets the limit at 20 students per classroom in early childhood education.
First year of ESO concentrates the pressure despite the limit of 30 students
Where the balance is most fragile is in the first year of ESO. The high demand and the duplicated places of students who have requested a change of school have strained the planning of this stage, the most sensitive in the early figures of the process.
In that context, Terrassa finally maintains capacity in two institutes that had been under review. The Institut Mont Perdut will keep its four lines of ESO and the Institut Nicolau Copèrnic will recover one, despite the initial announcement of cuts from the Departament d'Educació.
The government agreement signed at the beginning of the year sets 30 students per classroom as the maximum in public secondary education. Even so, during the municipal meeting it was raised that this limit does not by itself resolve the adjustments that live enrollment and the progressive decrease in ratios planned for the coming courses oblige.
Zoning Review Returns to Municipal Debate
Future planning adds another difficulty. The gradual reduction of ratios may force the creation of new groups and, with it, the search for space in centers that are already working with tight margins.
For that reason, in the Municipal School Council, an issue pending for years reappeared, the review of school zoning. On the table is the option of defining smaller areas to redistribute demand among city centers.
Terrassa has also premiered a pilot intensive welcome classroom for new fourth-year ESO students at the Institut Can Roca, designed to reinforce Catalan learning for these students joining the educational system.