The schools have to downsize after overspending

So we sat there, then. Gathered in the staff room for the “Meeting on redundancy”. Trondheim municipality must save. A lot. The school’s budget shall go to zero. Because we have spent more than we should, it is said. The rector has the municipality’s economists on his back, and the municipality has to relocate employees. It’s called overconsumption.

The school’s use of resources are essentially people. Teachers, environmental personnel and after-school staff who all try to achieve everything that needs to be done and everything that should have been done. Pupils in ordinary education, pupils entitled to special education, pupils entitled to special Norwegian education, pupils who have been traumatised, pupils with autism, ADHD, Tourette’s, dyslexia and dyscalculia, and pupils who need one-to-one follow-up throughout the school day. We have room for everyone in the school, and we have staff who are skilled at accommodating them all.

But now we are fewer employees than we were in August. The temporary jobs have ended. People who have found other jobs have not been replaced. Substitutes in case of illness, we will manage without. And there will be even fewer employees after the redundancy process is over. We have the same students as in August, but now with fewer hands on the same tasks. The offer we give to students will be worse. In the redundancy process, a risk analysis has been written, where the risk of a poorer learning environment and the employees’ working environment is strongly problematic.

Several of the city’s schools currently carrying out redundancy processes. 20 out of 55 primary schools in Trondheim have had an “overspend” and have reduced staff. But Trondheim municipality has not spent too much money on its pupils. The truth is that the Trondheim school is underfunded. Trondheim has lower school funding than all comparable cities in Norway. The teacher standard must be deliberately broken. This is nothing to be proud of.

So, Kent, you visited here at Ila school a while ago. You were curious and asked the headmaster: – What do you need in school? – People! replied the headmaster.

Well, I guess you didn’t promise to listen. But we challenge you to make the trip again. Help us cut tasks, not just budget. For which students should we lower priority? Feel free to answer us!

The post has been written on behalf of Klubben Ila skole, Uddanningsforbundet.

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