19 December 2011

Interparents wishes Mme. Christmann every success following her retirement as Secretary General of the European schools as of January 2012. Her indefatigable committment, professionalism, energy, good humour and diplomatic skills will be much missed.

17 April 2011

Today, Interparents does not sit in the Board of Governors alone. Today, every parent sits in the meeting room with them. Every parent and future parent, with their child, or children, attending a European school, is in that room alongside Interparents, watching to see what the Board of Governors decide, to see what sort of schooling their children are going to have when they start school in September 2011.

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2 April 2011

ALL Parents’ Associations are united in fighting the decision to cut schools’ budgets so deeply that they are touching the core principles of European education. Staff representatives too are vigorously contesting these cuts too.

ACTION is being organised on the 12 April 2011, which is when the Board of Governors meets to decide these matters. Everyone is asked to meet at 9am outside the Office of the Secretary General of the European Schools’, 30 rue Joseph II, 1049 Brussels, where the Board of Governors will meet.

INTERPARENTS will be there amongst others, including staff representatives and pupils, to make a statement on the current situation affecting European Schools. Then everyone will march to the Berlaymont building and delegations will ask to see President Barroso as well as high level members of the European Council and European Parliament.

INTERPARENTS ask the Board of Governors to

- VOTE NO to decisions with no pedagogical value, aimed at cutting costs at the children’s cost. Decisions, which are tantamount to changing the educational offer as defined in the Convention.

- VOTE NO to decisions which will be taken and which will have long-term consequences on the European schooling system as we know it today and as it has functioned for over 50 years.

- VOTE NO to decisions such as: the re-organisation of classes/groups; re-definition of SEN, ONL and SWALS pupils; re-definition of learning support and rattrapage.

- VOTE YES to a well thought through cost reduction proposal across the system which does not affect the educational principles.

Interparents believes that many of these decisions go to the very core of European schooling – for pupils to be “Educated side by side”, the need to safeguard the “primacy of the pupil’s mother tongue (L1)”, and “special needs pupils”.

WE ASK AS MANY OF YOU TO SUPPORT THIS ACTION AS POSSIBLE.

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3 April 2011 (Updated from 6 March)

INTERPARENTS sends a new letter on L1 classes and other issues to Ms Christmann. "Interparents is conscious that the next meeting of the Board of Governor’s in April 2011 is extremely important. Decisions will be taken, which will have long-term consequences on the European schooling system as we know it today and as it has functioned for over 50 years. Decisions such as: the re-organisation of classes/groups; definition of SEN and SWALS pupils; the Reform of the Baccalaureate."

1 September 2010

INTERPARENTS win difficult and important battle for safeguarding the good functioning of the European schools.

The COMPLAINTS BOARD OF THE EUROPEAN SCHOOLS agreed with INTERPARENTS on 22 July 2010, that the Board of Governors contravened Article 19 of the Convention when they adopted the new Rules of Procedure for the Administrative Boards resulting in a serious loss of PA voting rights at their Administrative Boards - from two votes to one.

INTERPARENTS is delighted that this difficult and important battle for safeguarding the good functioning of the European schools has been won and that: "la décision du Conseil Supérieur des Ecoles européennes, arrête lors de sa réunion des 2, 3 et 4 décembre 2009 et portant modifications du règlement intérieur des conseils d'administration desdites écoles, est annulée en tant qu'elle n'attribue, en son article 8, qu'une seule voix aux deux représentants des parents d'élèves au sein de ces conseils d'administration."

According to the ruling, the European schools are now bound to respect the voting rights stemming from the convention. This is a timely reminder that parents are also an important "owner" and stakeholder of the European School System and INTERPARENTS will remain ever vigilant on behalf of parents and thank them for their support.