Parents enraged by plans to cut upper forms from Keski-Espoo Comprehensive School

Around 150 students would be moved to other schools

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The Keski-Espoo Comprehensive School has suffered from a bad reputation for years. Some people have avoided sending their children to the school.
      Recently a motion was put before the City of Espoo Education Committee, proposing that the school be downsized and some of its facilities be used, for example, for pre-school teaching activities.
      The Education Committee will discuss the matter on March 18th.
     
Some Espoo parents are now enraged by the city’s plans to send the upper form students away from the Keski-Espoo Comprehensive School to other schools in the area.
      The school in Espoo's Suvela district has suffered from a questionable reputation, for example, because nearly half of its pupils speak a language other than Finnish as their mother tongue.
      The Education Committee chair Marika Niemi (National Coalition Party) suggested two weeks ago that the school’s profile could be raised by moving the upper form pupils to other schools.
      By freeing up some space, the school could be used, for example, for teaching Finnish to immigrant parents, Niemi envisions.
      According to Niemi, it is a question of money. Niemi asserts that there is no connection behind the suggestion and the public “immigrant school” discussions.
      “Pre-school purposes, for one, require more space in the area”, Niemi adds.
     
The father of one comprehensive school third-grader does not swallow Niemi’s explanation.
      “Outrageous behaviour. Attitudes of concealed racism are lurking in the shadows”, suspects Karri Vesa.
      The move would affect 150 pupils. According to the proposal, this coming autumn the seventh-graders would go to Saarnilaakso School, the eight-graders to Kauklahti, and the ninth-graders to Järvenperä.
      “Personally I favour a gradual change, where for example the present ninth-graders would be allowed to finish their comprehensive schooling in Central Espoo”, Marika Niemi says.
     
A public discussion forum on the subject took place on Tuesday. Those present described the atmosphere as furiously inflamed.
      “Things escalated to the point of outright screaming. And then the parents just marched out”, mother of two pupils Maritta Muukka explains.
      What really vexed the parents was the fact that the whole idea came as a total surprise to them.
      Both Muukka and Vesa were left with the feeling that the decision-makers had already clinched the deal.
     
The Education Committee has not reached any final decisions, however.
      Still, the parents’ sentiments are not completely wrong, estimates Education Committee member Markku Hannula (Green League).
      “From the committee’s email discussions one gets the impression that this is going to happen.”
      In Hannula’s view, hasty decisions are being made with regard to Central Espoo. Hannula also worries that in the discussion immigrant parents’ voices are not being heard sufficiently.
      “How come the Central Espoo situation is not viewed in connection with the service network charting, where the entire city’s schools are reviewed as a whole?” Hannula wonders.
      In the parents’ view the school has not been marketed correctly.
      For example the classes with art or physical education emphasis to their curricula have not been sufficiently advertised.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  City of Espoo considering major cost-cutting measures in education services next autumn (25.9.2009)

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