The 3rd Vice-President of the Collectivity, Dominique Démocrite Louisy, invited the press this Wednesday, September 4, to provide an update on various areas related to the 2024-2025 school year.
“The start of the school year is always a special time full of emotions and challenges. It is an opportunity for us politicians to reaffirm our mission: to offer each student a learning environment in which they can flourish, grow and achieve their potential,” declared the 3rd VP in the presence of DGA Paul Dollin, Director of Education Médhi Boucart and José Carti, Head of the Quality of Living Environment Department. While renovation work has already taken place during the summer holidays, visits to each school continue for the Community teams in order to report the grievances of the management.
School enrollment
In the 7 nursery schools in the area for the year 2024-2025, there are 1257 students enrolled with the largest number at the Siméone Trott school (228 children). In primary school, i.e. in the 8 public schools, 2189 students are enrolled with a majority of 376 at the Hervé Williams school, which brings the total to 3446 children enrolled in the 1st level with a clear objective for the Community: that each child can go to a school as close as possible to their home with the wish to find these students in secondary schools.
School transportation
Significant cost reduction for parents, the price of school transport (13 lines for an annual cost of more than €1.2M) which drops to €70 per year instead of the usual €140: “This flat rate encourages parents to register students to counter the fact of hitchhiking or taking an undeclared taxi.”
Purses
With 351 scholarship holders last year, the mobility aid (AME), co-financed by the European Social Fund to the tune of €2.4 million, is being renewed in its previous form.
Extracurricular activities – Wednesday plan
The Caisse Territoriale des OEuvres Scolaires (CTOS) welcomes children on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 6am to 9am, from 11:30am to 13:20pm and from 16pm to 17pm, as well as on Wednesdays from 8am to 16pm. The activities organized by the CTOS are varied: reading, homework help, manual and artistic activities, board games, dancing and singing, cultural and fun activities. The monthly fees are divided into three brackets according to the income of the parent(s): €20 for an income between 0 and €800, €23 between €801 and €1500, and €25 per child for an income above €1501.
Info: https://saint-martin.portail-familles.com
Work in educational establishments
Painting, tiling, cracked building, plumbing, sanitation: during the last school holidays, 400 classrooms were repaired, as well as some canteens, libraries and common areas. Concerning the schools in the Grand-Case district, which were affected by several strikes in the spring, work on the foundations of the buildings had to be suspended, but the Community is committed to respecting the schedule by resuming work during the next All Saints' Day holidays. The teams are currently on the ground to continue the finishing work.
Greening schools
Spread over 4 years, the greening plan concerns the entire territory but particularly schools with the objective of bringing trees back into school areas, as before. Considering that it takes 5 to 5 years for a tree to be mature enough to produce shade, the Community is delighted with the first phase of the greening plan and will launch the second phase during the All Saints' Day holidays: “We are mainly targeting school squares and entrances in consultation with school management, we must feel that we are in front of a public establishment, this is not a whim on our part, it is important to have spaces where there are trees and where it is less hot, as well as small gardens to educate children about the environment and teach them to plant vegetables, it is a political will to green schools for the well-being of children”.
Air conditioning of classrooms
In view of the energy problem in Saint-Martin, energy-saving measures must also be put in place based on the power limit of certain establishments that can no longer accommodate air conditioners. The Community therefore intends to explore the option of solar air conditioning.
Demolition of the MJC of Sandy Ground
Dominique Démocrite Louisy and José Carti wanted to provide an update on this construction site in order to reassure parents: “We started the demolition work during the holidays but we had to stop for technical reasons, namely suspicions of asbestos on certain elements”. Although the subject had been dealt with before the start of the work, other elements suspected of containing asbestos were discovered during the first phase of demolition. In order to guarantee everyone's safety, the withdrawal of the teams and the cessation of work were necessary, with protection of the site while waiting for the treatment of the elements concerned. There will be no work during the opening of the schools nearby, it will resume during the next holidays. _Vx
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