Students, parents, school management, teaching staff and admin and services workers at Barcelona education centres maintained with public funds are all called to vote.
The goal is to get everybody involved in the city’s education system and achieve quality, equity and inclusion in education in Barcelona. Representatives on school councils will be elected for a period of four years, with elections every two years to renew half of their members.
Choosing school councils as the first step
School councils at education centres themselves (nursery schools, primary, secondary, post-compulsory education, leisure organisations, sports organisations, musical and artistic teaching associations) are the main participatory bodies in the life of schools and education centres.
These councils embrace the voices of teaching staff, directors, students, families, administrate and service staff (PAS), as well as representatives from the City Council. Their role is to participate in decision-making which affects the education community and drive initiatives which help to improve the education system.
Management at publicly run centres and state-subsidised private centres were responsible for informing people about the presentation of candidates and other aspects of the electoral process. “What we want is for as many people as possible to take part from schools. Participation is an exercise in responsibility, involvement and commitment. The education community needs to mobilise”, affirms Marta Carranza, secretary of the Barcelona Municipal Education Board.
The calendar for the election process is as follows:
- Process begins: as from 2 November 2021.
- Constitution of electoral bodies: before 11 November 2021.
- Voting: from 22 to 26 November 2021, inclusive.
- Constitution of the school council and swearing in of members: no later than 20 December 2021.
From the school to the district
Once the school councils are constituted it will be time to renew the municipal district education councils (CEMD), which act as participatory spaces to address common issues which affect education centres in the same district.
Each centre should send a representative from each sector (students, teaching staff, PAS etc.) to form part of the district census. The people on this census will vote for the different candidates in the CEMD elections. The new district education councils will have to be constituted before the end of March 2022.
Final stage: the largest school council
The next stage will be the renewal of the Barcelona Municipal Education Board (CEMB), a space for debate, reflection and the creation of knowledge among the city’s education community. The procedure will be the same: towards the end of April everybody forming part of the district education councils will be able to choose the member of the City Education Board.
Representatives on school councils will be elected for a period of four years, with elections every two years to renew half of their members. “Renewal is needed due to the natural changes that occur at centres themselves: teaching staff, students and families, which vary over the years… and we have to make sure that the people who form part of the council are active in the sector they ran for”, explains Marta Carranza.
Promoting participation, a real challenge
Barcelona City Council is working to encourage participation, promoting the importance of voting for education councils at schools. In this respect, the City Council provides support for the electoral process and the subsequent renewals of municipal district education councils and the Barcelona Municipal Education Board itself.
However, according to Carranza there is still much more work to be done: “We have to improve communication systems so that people take part in elections. Mobilisation is still very low and the red tape to form part of the council is very heavy going. It should all be simpler”.
Carranza adds: “I’d love it if the entire education community mobilised and being part of the council was something people coveted. If people understood the great work that can be done through this participatory body and how its proposals can affect the political agenda, maybe we would arouse the interest of students, families and teaching staff. There are some extremely competent people in the city who would have a lot to give within school councils”.
Thirty years helping to improve the quality of education in the city
The Barcelona Municipal Education Board turned thirty in June, as did its decentralised versions, the ten district education councils.
As Marta Carranza explains, “school councils were created in 1990 with the LOGSE, a highly innovative and ground-breaking law in the education sphere, aimed at generating a climate of dialogue and agreement between the various stakeholders in the education community and finding solutions for city challenges in education”.
Carranza continues, “the City Education Board is currently a space for advice, information, influence and consensus for reaching agreements and moving forward to improve education. The goal of the CEMB is to the make the responsible administrations aware of the doubts, challenges and concerns that different sectors of the education community have, to influence public policies and generate change”.
The CEMB backs a series of initiatives geared towards quality, inclusion and equity in education in Barcelona. These initiatives range from generating a new form of educational planning through to work on structural problems engrained in the education system (school segregation, dropping out, bullying, mental health, well-being etc.). “We want to be a leader in education policies, to reach consensus to bring together student dreams with the wishes of families, something which the administration can achieve and which teaching staff need. And to share the power to guide policies and improve the education system”, concludes Carranza.