The Director General of Secondary School, Jennifer Cherrodefended the decision to prosecute and remove from office the director of the IAVA high school and assured that the room that the student union used to meet was in a “degree of abandonment“inadmissible in his opinion for a building considered National Historic Heritage.
“The photos are dramatic.“, he assured in dialogue with The Observer about the state in which the place where the unionized students met was found.
Secondary
As he explained, the legal department of Secondary School recommended that Leonardo Ruidiaz be prosecuted and removed from office, given the presumption that he had committed a serious offense. The inspectors found that the place where the union met was closed with chains and a padlock.
For some time, students have been demanding improvements in the accessibility of the buildingafter the elevator broke down four years ago and could not be repaired. Cherro pointed out that the intention of the Secondary School was, while there is no permanent solution for the elevator, to re-enable access to the high school through Eduardo Acevedo Street and put a ramp there temporarily. According to him, since the building is a National Historic Heritage, buying spare parts takes longer than normal and requires extraordinary procedures.
The temporary solution from the authorities implied accessing the building through the hall –which according to Cherro is not such, but an “access”– in which the union met.
Cherro stated that director Ruidiaz was asked to mediate with students to get that move to another room.
“We asked the management team to mediate. The manager did not have the keys to access the place“, said Cherro and explained that this request was made “many days ago”, without success.
“We gave them the possibility to choose a room, even on the same floor“, maintained the director in relation to the proposal that the secondary inspectors transferred to the direction of the IAVA.
According to Cherro, the students’ response was that if they changed their lounge they would lose “visibility”.
Secondary
The summary is for six months and implies retention of 50% of the assets
“Students say that this place has its history because they took teachers from there, but the truth is that I don’t think they know that story because they are very young“Replied the high school principal.
Once they gained access, he added, the state of the place surprised the inspectors. “the photos are terrible. A degree of abandonment, vandalization of the marbles, the written floor, profanity, issues that have to do with ideology… A bit of everything was found,” said the director.
Busy high school and teacher strike
Secondary
The director was notified of the resolution this Wednesday
After learning of the Secondary decision – which was notified to the principal this Tuesday – the students held an assembly and resolved to carry out an occupation in the high school, in addition to a demonstration on the steps that overlook José Enrique Rodó street.
“The students and teachers who are ‘unionized’ and ‘unionized’ are in a position of resistance, let’s say. We are in a very hostile environment. We cannot even walk through the corridors because the authorities squeeze us, they violate us every day with super evasive arguments to what our fight is and we want the authorities to show us their faces,” the student spokesperson told TV Ciudad.
In addition, secondary school teachers defined a 24-hour strike for this Thursday throughout the country.
In response to the occupation, Cherro pointed out that the eviction will be requested whenever necessary and assured that the Secondary School is “exercising authority” which is not the same as “authoritarianism”.
“It’s not authoritarianism, it’s putting the house in order. We cannot allow a building that is national heritage to be in the state of abandonment that it is, “he said and assured that what was generated with the director’s summary is something” disproportionate “.
“A great event is being made from something very simple that would have been solved by changing rooms and building a ramp,” he said.
