"Too much vegetable protein", "Excess legumes", "What do we do about sugar?" The menus served in schools – in accordance with regulations and under nutritional criteria – generate a disparity of opinions among families. In Catalonia, 49.5% of children use the school canteen service, according to data from the Program for the Review of School Menus of Catalonia (PReME), based on the centers evaluated. Some schools have their own kitchens and others are supplied by companies that serve them meals. The objective is, in all cases, to offer menus adapted to needs, whether medical or for religious or moral reasons, which go beyond food: sufficient time to eat in peace – if the din allows – added to a care service before and after sitting at the table.

In school canteens, we have run out of croquettes. We no longer have banana yogurts, and the macaroni is wholemeal. The day there is a vegetable starter and lentils as a main course, the students (and indeed all of us) suffer a brutal shock because culturally for us they are two starters and we miss a main course. The changes in the canteen menus have added a bit more drama, if that were possible, to school food, which has always been in the spotlight. I have attended courses on communication in schools, and all attendees agree: one of the most common complaints is about food. Whether we are from a public or private school, from Girona or Penedès, the canteen issue is always a struggle, and it's very difficult to get it right. Once a week, which almost always tends to coincide with the fateful day of legumes, I have to serve meals at my school. And after many hours of serving meals under my belt, I have come to the conclusion that, even if Ferran Adrià himself came to spherify olives, there would be complaints.

In August 2008, chance brought me to the scorching city of Page, Arizona. I have never experienced more scorching heat in my life. To try and keep myself biologically intact, I took refuge with a pitcher of beer at the Mexican restaurant La Fiesta. I was glancing at the Lake Powell Chronicle when Stevie Manniel, a Navajo Indian, sat next to me. He was half-drunk and wanted money. I showed him the state of my pants, in tatters, and he replied that only the rich dared to go out on the street with ripped pants.—What do you find interesting in the newspaper? —he/she asked me.I told him about a piece of news that I found surprising: the county's educational authorities were organizing teenage work teams during the hottest months of summer. They did strenuous work, such as repairing street furniture or the gardens of the elderly, or even road labor, with the aim of creating bonds between isolated teenagers, because —the newspaper said— "there is no worse company for teenagers than loneliness." Although everything was organized by the county's educational authorities, the implementation was carried out by local police volunteers without any financial compensation. One policeman assured that working under those climatic conditions made the collaboration between all those involved and the creation of bonds of trust and solidarity essential. Participation was voluntary and young people could withdraw whenever they wished.Given that my image of deep America's police was shaped by the arbitrary sheriffs of Hollywood movies, all of this surprised me so much that I took it with suspicion, even though the program supervisor assured that the mission of the police is, first and foremost, to prevent crime and ensure the well-being of the entire community. And then, surprisingly, that woman quoted Plato: the mission of the police, she said, is to guarantee the freedom of citizens.

The spectacular figures give an idea of the scope of the problem: the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into 84 nursery schools, 20 primary schools, and 10 nurseries in the French capital due to complaints against monitors and childcare educators, for both sexual abuse and acts of mistreatment (violence, punishments, etc.). The Prosecutor's Office announced this week, coinciding with a strike this Tuesday by educational staff who look after children in schools during non-teaching hours, both during the lunch break and in activities held in the afternoons, when classes have already finished.

Meetings with children's tutors are the opportunity to know what their life is like in the microcosm where they spend a large part of the day, at least from the age of six to sixteen. If there are no major problems, one or two meetings per academic year are usually scheduled, with meetings lasting around an hour. Although lately, teachers and families also communicate throughout the year, via email, when they deem it appropriate.Both Montse Jiménez, a secondary school teacher at Fundació Vedruna Catalunya Educació, and Núria Sabaté, a primary school teacher at Escola Marià Fortuny in Reus, recommend asking, in addition to academic questions, about your children's personal development. There is life beyond notes

Jiménez considers that most families are mainly concerned about grades, focusing on results even though the reports are qualitative and include tutor observations that assess transversal skills: “It still weighs heavily on 'How is my child doing?', and they refer to how they are doing in terms of results”. Along the same lines, Sabaté recommends that families ask questions to ensure they understand the tutors' perception of how their children are in class, if they participate, are happy, integrated, and get along well with their classmates: “To begin with, families should become aware of how their children are doing at school, and if there is anything that concerns the family, this is the time to discuss it”. In these meetings, parents can be interested in their children's overall development, progress and process, their achievements, and if they are improving. “Knowing their strengths, the difficulties they might have, their level, or if they are happy at school”, suggests the teacher. Therefore, it is the perfect opportunity to learn more about your children, beyond the reports. The use of technology

One of the recurring questions that have been arising lately from families is the use of technology in the center, for what, with which applications or platforms and with what supervision. “It is an issue that increasingly occupies families. These meetings can be a space to discuss it,” says the teacher. Meetings with families are also an opportunity for the center to ask – not to scrutinize, they say – about the uses of technologies and screens. “Sometimes we find primary school children who fall asleep in class or have trouble keeping up with the pace,” says the teacher, and she comments that they usually take the opportunity to share good uses of digital devices with families. Bond of trust

The teachers insist on the importance of weaving a bond of trust between the family and the school, “each of us wants the best for our children and students, we need to find points of convergence, focus more on the possible solution than on the problem”, proposes Jiménez. These spaces are perfect for complicity between the school and the family, for families to ask what they can do at home so that their children improve with what they need, and that these are not always shortcomings related to academic matters, they can also be personal or social skills. “The more fluid the communication, the better. It is worth setting common goals, because when the family and the school work together, the children perceive it quickly and it encourages them to improve. This is what we all want, for children and young people to achieve the best of themselves”, explains Sabaté. The two teachers recall the importance of asking about the person in all their dimensions, “they may have good academic results, but they need to improve personal aspects”, says Jiménez. “In such an individualistic society, it is necessary to form empathetic citizens, capable of weaving complicities, and who work for the common good. All together we must worry about what each student does and how they are”, she concludes.

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When she was a child, without knowing why, she already asked to live in Catalonia. And now, at 57, she knows she will never return to her country of origin. Sandra Monge Palladino was born in 1969 in the Argentine city of Rosario, into a family originally from the Italian Piedmont. Educated in a ideologically very diverse environment, she has always been linked to anti-capitalist left-wing movements. During her childhood, she suffered the blows of the military dictatorship of General Videla (1976-1983), by which she has always remained marked.

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"E pluribus unum" (Unity in plurality) is the motto on the coat of arms of the United States, the title of a landmark 2007 academic article, and the ideal of any society that makes pluralism a supreme constitutional value, which is to promote the freedom of citizens without fostering their division into factions.The article was signed by the social democratic sociologist Robert Putnam, who was an advisor to Clinton, Tony Blair and Obama, and begins as follows: "One of the most important challenges facing modern societies, and at the same time one of our most significant opportunities, is the increase in ethnic and social heterogeneity in practically all advanced countries".There is –Putnam assures us– a limit to plurality beyond which it becomes difficult to maintain the ideal of a community made up of heterogeneous members. If it is crossed, plurality degrades into the atomization of isolated individuals who have no intermediaries between their self and the community space.The growth of social heterogeneity is favored both by migratory dynamics and by underlying currents in modern societies that tend to see value in difference. In fact, today we understand equality as the equal right to be different (hence dominant emotivism). In schools it is said that each student learns differently (when our similarities are greater than our differences) and at universities there is an insistence on the incommensurability of different cultures. We are privatizing morality, but since we are unable to provide ourselves with a coherent moral order, we have burdened ourselves with such excessive responsibilities that we end up evading them. However, if we erode shared moral standards, we deprive ourselves of the possibility of peacefully resolving the inevitable disputes of communal life.It would be culturally suicidal to ignore the challenges of heterogeneity. The phenomenon of native flight” is well known, for example, which tells us that when the concentration of immigrant students in educational centers reaches certain thresholds, native families take their children to centers with a more homogeneous student body. Something similar happens in neighborhoods, leisure spaces, and public services.

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A police officer at school to complete the staff. It's just an experiment, they say. When I read it, I couldn't believe it. It seems a contradiction in terms: school as the main place for education and socialization should have basic shared values: what is happening that in an open and democratic society those in power can have a joke like this? At school you go to learn, to socialize, to enter the relational logic of society, to acquire skills to find your place in the world, to build relationships naturally, to grow up. And this requires a space of trust, recognition, and the construction of a framework for coexistence based on the development of each person's personality, which allows us to learn from the contradictions and complexity of human societies.

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The family of a minor child has filed a second complaint for sexual violence against a janitor at the Doctor Fortià i Solà school in Torelló. On April 21, another family had already filed a complaint against the same school worker for sexual assault. After this, the Mossos d'Esquadra arrested the janitor, who was brought before the court in Vic and is currently released on bail.

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When she was 6 years old, teacher Maryam El Hamidi (Tangier, 1994) experienced firsthand the ordeal her students have recently gone through. With her mother and sister, they came to live in Castelló d’Empúries to reunite with her father in the year 2000. "In the schools where I have worked, they see me as a mirror. Especially women, they see a role model. Perhaps I haven't gone through the same circumstances as them, but I know their needs. I give them confidence and motivation. If the road is long, I make it shorter," assures El Hamidi.

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The Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating a case of sexual violence in a school in Torelló, in the Osona region. The child's parents filed the complaint this Tuesday, April 21. Specifically, according to sources consulted by ARA, the person being investigated is a worker at the center who is not part of the teaching staff. The complaint would be for a sexual assault on a minor.

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“Children don’t just feel conflict, they breathe it”. Psychologist specialized in mediation and conciliation Javier Wilhelm highlights that when two families go through a conflict situation and their children share a class, this has a direct implication on the minors’ well-being. The school can play an important role as a link between the parties, but the key factor that will determine the extent of the consequences are the families involved. The way they manage their disagreement –with the emotions it entails– can lead to a serious estrangement between the children and, among adults, open a communicative abyss.

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Of all the mistakes I've made in my maternal journey, of which there are many and varied, there has also been a great success: enrolling my children in the after-school club. It's the town's after-school club, called Globus Roig, and like all after-school clubs, they educate in leisure and, above all, they educate in something enormous: that the youngest have adolescents as role models who act as monitors, who play with them and take them on camps in exchange for nothing. Let's return to this concept so we don't overlook it. In. Exchange. For. Nothing. It is the maximum generosity in a world where adolescents have a reputation for not looking up from their phones and living in an infinite scroll without their own criteria. We value this refuge of young people who have decided to mortgage all their weekends and their holidays to be with our children. this refuge of young people who have decided to mortgage all their weekends and their holidays to be with our children.

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In the school in Girona that I attended as a child, Carol Law Lee, of Chinese origin, was for a long time the only girl with parents from abroad. “I felt exotic. The older students would touch my hair and say it looked like threads!”, she recalls. Years later, however, another Chinese girl arrived, whom she “felt close to” and “was very eager to meet”.

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A few weeks ago, the students of the Baldiri i Reixac School in Barcelona went on a school trip. The children in I5, second, and fourth grade did. Until last year, all grades went, but the teaching staff decided to reserve them only for the end of the cycle because it was becoming increasingly difficult to find teachers willing to go each year. They thought that the fact that not everyone had to go each year would lead to greater availability on the part of the teachers. Years ago, the opposite decision was made. The trips were held at the end of the cycle, and it was agreed to extend them to all grades. “We teachers attached great importance to the trips, but little by little we have been getting worn out,” comments a teacher from the center.

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Salt is known today for being the municipality with the lowest per capita income in Catalonia. Also one of the towns with the highest concentration of migrant population: nearly 40% of its residents are of foreign nationality. But what headlines have overlooked in recent years is that almost half of this town's surface area is still orchards and pastures. The Monar canal, parallel to the Ter river, marks the border between built-up Salt and the agricultural zone. Few facilities surpass it, except for a large high school built on fertile land. Located on the border with Girona, surrounded by greenery and with magnificent views of the Mare de Déu del Mont, lies Vallvera. A secondary and vocational training center with over 1,200 students inaugurated in 2008, it contrasts with its surroundings as a large gray sheet metal building with a concrete-filled courtyard. "In winter it's a refrigerator and in summer an oven, there's no middle ground!" laments the director, Ferran Maimir, who started this course with a direction very focused on working towards the renaturalization of the courtyard, but with a different method: having the students themselves build the shade with their hands.

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It's 10:30 a.m. on a winter Friday, and when we arrive at 12-year-old Martín's room, we find him with his hospital teacher, Alba Sau. Together, they're trying to identify the fruit scent of each of the perfume bottles arranged on a tray. The young boy, who suffers from a rare metabolic disorder called sulfite oxidase deficiency, laughs every time he correctly identifies one of the fragrances, showing off his keen sense of smell. The day before, they had been painting, improvising a paintbrush with a straw and a pencil that Martín used in his mouth. "We try to adapt as much as possible to each child's tastes and interests to connect with them," Alba explains, while trying to set up Tobii, the tablet Martín uses to communicate through his eyes, on Martín's bedside table. "For me, it's essential that Martín can communicate, not only with me, but also with his mother and the healthcare staff; it's part of his recovery," she emphasizes.

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We live in strange times: hatred has become a national pastime. It doesn't take much to ignite it: three headlines, two talk shows, and a couple of tweets, and suddenly half the country is judging the other half from the comfort of their sofas, with pre-packaged opinions. Curiously, in this race to point fingers, schools are always mentioned. As if the social fracture were the fault of a poorly corrected dictation or a badly presented media project.

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Some families know exactly which school they want for their children, while others begin an intense research process after a positive pregnancy test. My first thought would be that the perfect school doesn't exist. Just like perfect parents and the perfect job don't exist. There will always be something that feels off, and you'll have to define your true red lines. I do think it's very important to consider different educational options and visit more than one school, whether at open houses or by having a personal interview. Let's be honest, if we go to different dealerships to buy a car, this infinitely more important task requires our time and a clear understanding of the school where we'll pre-enroll.

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A school, like any complex human organization, needs leadership, direction, someone at the helm who takes the risk of making the final decisions. In the case of educational institutions, this doesn't mean going against the teamwork of the teaching staff. It's not that at all. A principal is someone who takes responsibility for representing the entire educational community: teachers, students, families, administrations, the surrounding community... Someone who, if they do it well, promotes internal and external dialogue, strives to retain talent and strengthen the team, looks after the working conditions of colleagues, seeks to strengthen the school's identity, and ensures consistency. Leading with intelligence, empathy, and credibility is as complicated as it is necessary. Not everyone is willing to do it, nor is it easy. Training is also necessary for leadership. And rewards. And the tools to do it.

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