Dozens of parents stood in line last night at School 51 in Sector 2 – Mega Mall area to enroll their children in the after-school program organized by the after-hours educational institution. People said there were more applications than places. The mayor of Sector 2, Radu Mihaiu, said that on Friday after lunch, the places made available were not fully occupied, there being two more available. However, registrations can also be made on Mondays. If there will be more applications than places, they cannot be supplemented, because there are no more free classrooms.
Students learningPhoto: Sarinya Pinngam | Dreamstime.com
Parents sat in line from 6 pm and waited until morning. The parents were afraid that they would not get a seat if they came in the morning.
Contacted by HotNews.ro, the mayor Radu Mihaiu stated that the school has 180 places available at afterschool, and more could not be done because there is no space.
“At School 51 it is a mixed situation. The entire middle school cycle uses the school until late, the 7th and 8th grades have classes until 3:00 p.m. because the children also do additional preparation for the national assessment, within the school. Grades V and VI study in the afternoon. In the afternoon, only 8 classrooms remain free because the rest are used by children who are at school. Of these classrooms, 7 are large, one is small. In the 7 large rooms, two afterschool groups of 12 students can enter, and in the eighth room only one group of 12 students can enter, there is no room for more. So, in total we have 180 places. Until now, 178 students have been enrolled”, explained the mayor Radu Mihaiu, contacted by HotNews.ro.
If the number of applications exceeds the number of places, a waiting list will be formed, in case someone withdraws and a place becomes available.
“That is the limitation related to the space, but there is also a limitation related to the teachers who want to participate in this program. At the moment there are 14 teachers who have confirmed that they can participate. One group is without a teacher, we will make every effort to find another teacher, for the last group, in the coming days, in order to reach the maximum of 180 places”, explained Mihaiu.
He says that this year there were many more requests compared to last year, a possible explanation being that this year the City Hall is paying for a hot meal for children enrolled in after-school.
“School 51 previously had a “School after school” program, which was not as popular. It wasn’t until City Hall began funding the program in 2022 and including a hot meal for children that it really became popular. This year the demand has increased a lot”, explained Mihaiu.
Admission to this program is on a first-come, first-served basis. Asked why other tie-breaking criteria were not established, such as single-parent families or social cases, the mayor says that this program is for all children.
“We had long discussions on the admission criteria. We had to decide if this program was a social program or one for all children. Having made the decision that it is for all children, this means that it was not our intention to discriminate, we considered that all children have the same rights. A single-parent family can also mean families with high incomes, or unmarried parents who live together, and these things are difficult to manage and would have been invasive to the privacy of the child and the parents. The only criterion left was the first come, the first to arrive,” explained Mihaiu.
Asked why the registrations are being made only now, almost a month after the start of the school year, the mayor said that the school only now received approval from the Inspectorate.
The “School after school” program – practically a state afterschool, is carried out in 16 schools in Sector 2, being co-financed by the City Hall.
The mayor says that so far there have been no problems with places at the rest of the schools, as they are not fully occupied.
“Not all the available places were occupied. There are 3000 places in the program. We would like there to be more, unfortunately where they learn in two or three shifts it cannot be implemented logistically, because they do not have classrooms. It is this phenomenon of deemed better schools, where children who do not live in the area are accepted on floating visas. Because of this, it ends up that in those schools they learn in two or three shifts, so it is no longer possible to do after-school”, explained Mihaiu.
List of schools participating in the program in the 2023-2024 school year:
1. Lucian Blaga Theoretical High School
2. Secondary School 39
3. Secondary School 24
4. Secondary School 66
5. Mother of God School
6. Secondary School 51
7. Secondary School 46
8. Secondary School 25
9. Secondary School 77
10. Ferdinand I Secondary School
11. Saint Sylvester School
12. Petre Ghelmez Secondary School
13. Secondary School 62
14. Secondary School 28
15. Secondary School 31
16. Ghica Voivod Secondary School
The “School after School” program in Sector 2 was launched in January 2022 and started with 900 places.
Last summer, you also queued in Sector 3 to enroll in the summer kindergarten
Queues of hundreds of people formed last summer at several kindergartens in Sector 3, when registration for the “Summer Kindergarten” program began. Parents have been queuing since last night and making waiting lists, desperate that they won’t get a seat and have nothing to do with their children during the summer. The problem was solved in a few days, after the City Hall increased the number of seats.
