Sant Joan Questions the Ampas Campaign on Language Choice in Schools

The consultation on the base language in Sant Joan schools is heating up amid attempts to 'manipulate and confuse' parents by certain 'interested' groups, as denounced by the mayor, the popular Santiago Román. The associations of mothers and fathers of students (AMPAs) from the three public schools in Sant Joan - currently known as family associations (AFAs) - have launched an informational campaign about the Educational Freedom Law, although the City Council 'questions the impartiality' of this campaign.

Román has asserted that the initiative's promoters 'are manipulating and confusing parents in a self-interested manner' at the Lo Romero, Cristo de La Paz, and Rajoletes schools.

The Education Councillor, Marcos Piña, explains that 'in the video distributed by the AFAs, there is a specific call to vote in favour of Valencian as the best option. Worse still, they question the continuity of free books by manipulating and creating confusion among parents,' comments the councillor. 'To top it off,' Piña continues, 'the AFAs have invited Jaume Fullana to an informational talk, presented as a 'member of the Multilingual Education Unit of the University of Alicante', who was also the Director General of Educational Policy of the Botànic for Compromís.'

'Neither impartiality nor multilingualism, those who imposed one language to the detriment of another when they governed, now panic at the thought of parents being able to democratically and freely choose the language in which they want their children to study predominantly,' emphasizes Santiago Román.

It so happens that this same week, the same talk will also be held in El Campello, with Jordi Antolí, Director of the Multilingual Education Unit of the University of Alicante and Deputy Director of the Department of Catalan Philology at the University of Alicante, as the speaker. All these talks are promoted by La Cívica-Escola Valenciana, 'an association that advocates the exclusive use of Valencian, to the detriment of Spanish,' the City Council states in a statement.

Additionally, Román and Piña wish to convey the complaints they have personally received from families who have received the video and 'feel offended by the behaviour of the associations of mothers and fathers of Sant Joan schools.'

'For all these reasons, from the City Council of Sant Joan d'Alacant, we want to call on all parents of the educational community to exercise their right to vote freely to choose the language in which they want their children to predominantly study, without marginalizing any official language of the Valencian Community,' they expressed in a statement.