Parents’ association or “business”?

Accountability, Guest post

My Experience with the APEEE’s Woluwe Board since its election in January 2020

I have been a Portuguese class representative since 2017 when my daughter joined the EEB2 School. I am a dynamic person and I took this responsibility with passion and selflessness – what I want is my daughter to go to a school where she feels happy, gets the best education possible and is safe. I want this not just for her but also for all children attending the school.

I had high expectations of the Parents association – the APEEE – that represents the parents. It has double responsibilities – it provides valuable services to our children and represents the parents by proxying their concerns collectively to the school’s decision-making forums. The APEEE elected Board members are volunteer parents and their service and dedication is commendable. However, when they volunteered they were aware of the work it entails as most of the members have been elected in the past and repeated arguments that they are volunteers to avoid dialogue and answering questions doesn’t hold water.

Unfortunately, and it is not easy to write – during these past two years I do not feel this team has done a good job. Neither in managing the services part of the APEEE (also repeatedly called “business” by the current APEEE’s President who, it seems, believes he is running an international corporation) nor in consulting and representing the parents on the pedagogical matters.

Regarding the “business” parents are not exactly treated like clients. There is still no answer on the question on the reimbursement of the activities when they were cancelled during the first lock down. We also received no answers on how money was spent in detail in the previous financial year, having, on the contrary, being systematically accused of disrupting their work when any questions are asked.

Furthermore, contracts are awarded without clear procurement procedures and during last year’s financial exercise the 1.250,00€ budget for legal matters was exceeded by a staggering ammount, with 18.396,79€ expended – see item honoraires et frais d’avocat / frais de huissier on page 7.

The pedagogical and safety aspects also seem to not have been properly addressed. I have personally sent several emails with feedback including:

  • requests for more flexibility for vulnerable families for their children to attend school,
  • to increase the pool of Portuguese section teachers in the school,
  • to reflected and possibly lower the maximum number of pupils of 30 per class,
  • to stop the forced move of  pupils to the new Evere site (a matter resolved by parents action that the APEEE detached itself from),
  • to put more strict COVID measures in place to avoid school closure

and for doing so I was accused of disrupting the board’s work, xenophobia, and the best of them all, believe it or not, activism.

There is also no feedback on important meetings being held with school. To excuse this behaviour, the APEEE used a, in my opinion, poorly drafted and rather unclear confidentiality agreement that doesn’t even define what is confidential nor does it describe the process to qualify information as confidential. This agreement has been challenged through the call for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the APEEE, a meeting  the board must still organise.

In my opinion, information that might really matter to parents is probably being kept from them.

But there is hope that this will soon end with today’s weekly communication from the school where all parents can read the following:

For the sake of transparency, the reports of various official meetings, such as the Educational councils, the School Advisory Committee (SAC), the Safety and Health Committee (CSH) or the Board of Governors (CA) will soon be harmonized and centralized by our communication department. These reports will be communicated to all members of the school community in the weeks following the meeting in compliance with confidentiality rules. I hope that this initiative will help reinforcing the efficiency of our communication and the trust of every one of you in our school’s management.

Time passes and parents’ doubts are not answered – they claim they are volunteers and don’t have the resources but they do not seek or accept help from parents not belonging to the Board. This makes it impossible to have a proper representation.

What are your experiences? Are you being treated in the same manner? Should we rethink the way of working of an European School’s parents associations? Let me know what you think: celia.rodrigues@thewoluwediaries.blog.