Back to school operation goes off without a hitch

PALMA
IT was back to school for more than 152'000 children in the Balearics yesterday, with police out in force to make sure that everything went off smoothly and traffic jams were kept to a minimum.

In Palma, more than 270 Local Police officers were on point duty outside schools, the worst spots being Son Gotleu, Son Rapinya, Calle Aragon and surrounding streets and the road to Valldemossa.

When posting police, the authorities took into account the intensity of traffic, the danger of the road, width, number of lanes, the age of the schoolchildren and the presence of traffic lights.

Parents have been advised by the city council to use public transport, or to organise school runs with other parents.
Parents who did drive their children to school were advised to drop them off at the corner of the street rather than at the school gates, to prevent traffic congestion.

Government spokeswoman Margarita Nájera said that the situation was normal in all the primary schools in the Balearics, with the exception of Sa Cuarterada in Calvia, where classes do not start until Monday.

But the teachers' trade union STEI disagreed with Nájera's claims that all the schools opened with their full complement of teachers.
Apart from that, the situation was described as normal, although a union spokesman said that the number of pupils per class room was too high in some schools, particularly those for three-year-olds and that State schools still have the highest ratio of foreign pupils in Spain.