Teachers Alexandra Farfán and Normelis Flores reported being persecuted and dismissed from their school positions for refusing to take out food for their bosses.
The two teachers were removed from their positions, violating their job, family and emotional stability for refusing to take out the bags of food from the school’s children’s meals for their bosses at the Parish and Special Municipal Educational Quality Development Center.
Alexandra Farfán and Normelis Flores, director and deputy director of the U.E.N.B. Dr. Santiago Izaguirre, located in San Francisco, Bolivarian Municipality of Angostura in the State of Bolívar, in southern Venezuela, reported that they are being persecuted and also dismissed from their positions for refusing to steal the children’s food for their bosses. The teachers reported that for refusing to perform this illegal act that violates the right to food of the children of the institution where they provide services, they were dismissed from their functions as school directors.
Both teachers with an impeccable service record of 18 and 11 years in the school were removed from their positions, and are also being forced to relocate to another institution, thus violating their stability, not only emotionally, but also at work and in the family. All for refusing to “steal” food bags destined for children at the request of the heads of the Center for Development of Parish and Municipal Educational Quality, Marilyn Rebolledo and Betha Freitas. “Dignity and respect for our conscience are not sanctioned, because as a teacher my commitment is to the children and I owe it to the parents and representatives who with sacrifice send their children to school. They removed me from the Directorate (principal’s office) with all the academic and professional qualifications and where I conducted myself impeccably, and I defer to the evidence,” said Farfán.
The teacher pointed out that her commitment is to her vocation and to this she must pay tribute and not to please personal whims, and that is why they now attack her person. They denounced Marilyn Rebolledo for persecuting, threatening and harassing the teaching profession, applying “psycho-terror” mechanisms to the teachers, to silence them or else they accuse teachers of being fascists and disappearing them. They argued about the seriousness of the situation, denouncing a series of administrative irregularities that have been committed involving relatives of these officials and under the complacent gaze of state authorities.
Farfán highlighted that a quantity of food is kept in storage, and that she refused to take a gram of rice because these are food supplies that belong to the children, something that has surprised the new directors. “During my administration, if 60 children attended, I cooked for 60 children and I kept the rest of the food in store because it was my responsibility. And Professor Carmen Omaira Lascano, supervised this and during the Open School Days of which I have photographs of every day, where Professor Normelis Flores, deputy director, was in charge of these events,” she explained.
Normelis Flores, the institution’s deputy director, who also worked as a psycho-pedagogue with a specialty in learning difficulties, was dismissed from the institution where this service is needed, because many of the children have difficulties in academic areas, reading, writing and calculation, now the school is left without this resource, leaving this population unattended. To conclude, the teachers lamented that education in the state of Bolívar continues to fall into an abyss, presenting its worst face, and pointed out that the academic disaster is such that the person who assumes the direction of the school is a preschool teacher who does not have the necessary academic accreditations to exercise the position of director of an elementary school, according to what is established in articles 4 and 9 of the Regulations on the Exercise of the Teaching Profession.
They warn that anything that happens to them and their families, they hold the two aforementioned officials responsible. They made a call to the Minister of Education and Governor Angel Marcano.
Press release