A group of parents is going ahead with a court action against the Ministry of Education because their children remain without a place in public school, despite classes having already begun. Rui Boavida, one of the affected parents, has been without a response to his transfer request for his twins since the end of July, and knows of more than a dozen students in the same situation. Some of these students had been attending private schools such as São José or Ave Maria, and are now at home without books, school, or teacher.
The parents also criticize the silence of the ministry's services, which have no in-person service, do not respond to emails or phone calls. The General Directorate of School Establishments (DGEstE), which had its doors open in Lisbon, was abolished and its responsibilities transferred to the newly created Agency for the Management of the Education System (AGSE), which the parents consider to have no practical existence.
A teacher from the Restelo School Grouping explained that, although schools now have autonomy to enroll students, there need to be available places. Until recently, there was a meeting between the groupings in the municipality of Lisbon to determine available places and redistribute students, but this year that meeting has not yet taken place. The teachers who worked at DGEstE returned to their original schools, with only senior technicians remaining who are probably not sufficient in number to manage the situation.
Given this situation, the parents created the "We Are Not Puppets" group, open to all parents in similar situations, and are preparing to proceed with legal action against the Ministry of Education.
