Last week, there was a widespread teacher strike in France regarding COVID guidelines. French teachers protested that the current guidelines are impeding the learning process for students. 

“I think that the teachers did the right thing but the wrong way. I would say if the teachers gave school notice a month in advance then substitutes would be ready and they would get hired in place of the main teacher when they left,” said history teacher Mr.Yovino.

On top of that, the teachers union in France planned to have a walkout on the 27th. Last week, half of primary schools were forced to close, and the teachers want the French government to hire more substitute teachers. Casey Tourand, a French student at Westview High in San Diego, had opinions on the matter surrounding COVID in schools.

“Honestly the best option was to stay in online school for my opinion, the chance of getting COVID was so much lower than at school and I think most prefer online school sometimes,“ said French student Casey Tourand (‘24).

Some teachers on the other hand think schools should’ve stayed online, also that the COVID guidelines are either too harsh and should not be, or if they are too soft and should be stricter.

“I don’t like that COVID has gotten to this level and most of the time someone in my class is gone from COVID. This can make it hard to teach for some teachers who have many students out at once,” said Yovino.

Casey heard about the strike from one of his French teachers, allowing him to gain the perspective of the teachers and their ideals.

“After reading up on the current situation I thought that teachers did the right thing by making more subs be hired. This was also good for the students as they got a day off without notice which is always good,” said Tourand.

The strike will likely escalate if the French government can’t get their subs in order by the next walkout date. This could be one of the largest teacher strikes in a while and all of this will likely come up again in the future.

“They definitely did good by proving a valid point in that more substitutes need to be hired which also helps with more people with jobs and overall this will keep kids educated on the current situation of the world,” said Yovino