A protest took place in Italy on Thursday (12), when a group of parents withdrew their children from a school in Bari due to the number of “foreign” students in their class, according to La Repubblica.
Four children at Don Bosco primary school in the southern Italian city of Bari were transferred to another school by parents who initially asked the principal to move them to a class with fewer “foreign” students.
“This happened in the first year, in which seven of the 20 students are 'foreign', or have non-Italian parents,” the school's director, Gerardo Marchitelli, told La Repubblica.
“But five of them were born in Bari, and they don't even have a language difference. The other two were born in Georgia and Bangladesh.”
He said parents of seven or eight children had originally asked at the start of the school year to move their children to another class.
“After understanding their motivation, I responded that they had only two options: leave their children where they were or ask permission to change schools.”
The school doesn't see skin color
“I must say there was no conflict,” Marchitelli added. “They made an appointment, came to me and said there were many foreign students in the class. I replied that as far as I was concerned there were none.”
“They didn’t understand that the school doesn’t look at skin color. To us, they are just children,” he said. “If parents perceive differences as something negative, I certainly can’t educate parents as well. I try, but not very much.”
Marchitelli stated that racism “is a problem that exists everywhere.”
“There are also those who worry about the presence of a child with a disability because they think they might be late to class,” he said.
The school is located in the Libertà neighborhood, in the center of Bari, known for its diversity. “They are truly wonderful children who know at least two languages, English or French and Italian, and maybe read Arabic in the afternoon at the mosque,” Marchitelli said.
Local authorities praised the principal's firm response to the parents' complaint and highlighted that the city of Bari has a long history of welcoming people from other countries.
Parents should go back to school
Ludovico Abbaticchio, Puglia's regional children's advocate, said: “The director of Don Bosco did well by being firm and decisive in saying no when some parents asked to transfer their child to another classroom because there were too many 'black-skinned' children. in the classroom."
“These parents should go back to school and learn the value of respect for people, religions and civil life,” he added.
Following the reports, Paola Romano, Bari's municipal education counselor, invited any parents with “similar questions” to meet with her to discuss them.
“In Bari, no one is a foreigner. Our city has a history of hospitality,” she added.
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