Pioltello school teachers: 'Attacked by the state'

The almost 200 teachers of the Iqbal Masih Comprehensive Institute in Pioltello, the Milanese school at the centre of controversy over the decision to leave pupils at home on the day of the end of Ramadan, feel 'attacked by the State'. In a letter, they ask the teachers to "tone down" and avoid instrumentalising a "legitimate" choice made for educational reasons, while vice-principal Maria Rendani appeals to President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella to come to Pioltello and "intervene".

The school board resolution approving the decision to close the school on 10 April, according to inspectors from the regional school office, has "irregularities", as Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara reiterated today. Hence the request to headmaster Alessandro Fanfoni to suspend or cancel it. For this reason, an extraordinary meeting of the school board has been called on Monday to deal with the 'at least questionable' objections, as Mirko Dichio, who is a member of the board, called them. "True inclusion in institutes with a high presence of foreign students is achieved with new forms of didactic enhancement and more appropriate criteria for class formation," said Valditara, who expressed his solidarity with the headmaster who was the target of insults and threats, but also attacked "those who have tried to instrumentalise the work of the ministry offices in a disgraceful and unworthy manner. He went so far as to speak of racism and Islamophobia. Serious and irresponsible words, especially in a period fraught with tensions'. 'If a region decides that the day we celebrate Passover or Ramadan is a holiday, then we will bow down. As long as this is not there,' commented Senate President Ignazio La Russa, 'it is wrong to think that what the Pioltello institute has done is right'.

Instead, Mohamed Pietro Danova, president of the El Huda Islamic community in Pioltello, speaks of a 'missed opportunity for integration'. Schools cannot decide on holidays, but they do have a few days when they can decide on closures for educational reasons. And the teachers in Pioltello keep repeating that this is the only reason they did it, because over 40% of pupils are foreigners and many on Eid Al Fitr day would have stayed at home anyway.

"We believe that teaching classes with half the pupils in class is not teaching," they write, "that the proposed activities should be resumed anyway and that it is necessary to suspend teaching activities on the day when almost half the school is absent. "As school workers we feel offended and mistreated, these days we are trampled on in values and dignity. "Whoever attacks a school employee attacks the State" said Minister Valditara a short time ago, but for days now - they say - we feel attacked and unprotected by the wave of hatred generated in the press and social media, even by politicians".

The vice-principal assures that 'the decision to close on 10 April is a didactic choice. There is nothing ideological, nothing religious. We did not want to include any holidays, we do not want to take away anyone's identity and we do not want to suppress any culture'. 'I ask Mattarella to intervene, to come to Pioltello to support us,' says Rendani, who two years ago was made a Knight of Merit of the Republic by the Head of State for her work in the classroom during the pandemic, 'because we feel alone. He is the only one who can put an end to this sad story. How can I find the strength and courage to teach my pupils that the Italian State defends its citizens?'.