“Study outside the walls”: an extensive program was prepared for schoolchildren on election days

They will take them on excursions and in parks

Elections will be held nationwide this week. Schools have traditionally been the location of polling stations in Russia. In different regions, they decide in different ways what to do with schoolchildren at this time. Between the 2-3-day distance, Health Days and various extracurricular activities in Moscow, extracurricular activities were chosen.

As MK was told from the press service of the Moscow Department of Education and Science, “an exciting program will be prepared for schoolchildren in museums, parks, libraries, theaters, metropolitan technoparks, and central city institutions will also be opened for children.” The department emphasizes that classes will not be canceled, and “a school day will be organized outside the school walls.”

This is true from a legal point of view, because the law does not allow interrupting the educational process for elections. At the same time, the schools have very strict SanPiNs, therefore, after the elections, the return of schoolchildren is always preceded by a big cleaning night. This is not to mention the fact that before the start of such an important event as the will of citizens, the premises for the installation of ballot boxes and the passage of voters also expect a strict preparation protocol. In general, half a day of preparation “before”, half a day “after”. And not all schools or municipalities have the funds to hire cleaning or workers – they clean on their own.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in regions where schools often work in two or three shifts and not everywhere switched to a five-day study (they study on Saturdays), it is easier to close for 2 or even 3 days.

Full or partial distance learning in schools where there will be “sites” has already been announced in Tula, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Volgograd and Voronezh. Volgograd also reported that “Health Days” would be held for children. Last year, similar Days were held in Moscow parks.

– I can’t even say that the polling stations at the school is a headache, it’s so familiar, – says the head teacher of the Moscow school Lidia Leonidova. – Last year, the pandemic was still active, then, indeed, many were nervous. We have a building on an individual project, 8 entrances and exits in total, and it was easier for us to fit into the norms after the end of the voting, to provide partial sanitation. And colleagues, I know, many laundered the whole school. Now everything is somewhat simpler and goes on knurled, one might say. Teachers and parent committees were notified in advance and took care of where the children would go: to master classes in museums, to the theater, to an exhibition, to VDNKh. And this extra-curricular day was in our plan in advance.

Interestingly, in 2021, when a single voting day grew into 3 whole days, in fact, Ella Pamfilova proposed to arrange a whole vacation week for elections. Presumably in October. They say that parents will be more willing to vote, and the children will be with them – such a civil family holiday. And it’s a sin to hide: schoolchildren “clog” on Health Days, but they simply shirk from remote work – they got the hang of covid.

Another “electoral” trend is for moving ballot boxes along with voters from schools somewhere else. At the MFC, municipalities or at least by mail.

If we take into account the experience of other countries, then public buildings within walking distance, which are also quite spacious, are also most often the places of voting. That is, schools. In the USA, for example, most often it is a gym in a public school. But there are also unhackneyed solutions: temporary voting points in hypermarkets, swimming pools, bowling alleys… There are polling tents, for example, in Israel, although the possibility of the appearance of such polling stations immediately caused protest in our country. Mobile voting stations not only travel to remote areas and settlements, but also to homes upon request, not only to the disabled. Or even there is a vote in the temples. Similar non-standard places of deployment of ballot boxes with ballots are also found in Russia, except for churches, perhaps. But there is no mass alternative to schools yet.