Before the meeting the participants had an opportunity to visit the Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary school buildings. During this tour both the school directorate and PA representatives highlighted the school's urgent needs that have to be fulfilled to be able to ensure high-quality teaching.

In the subsequent meeting, attended by representatives of the ECB, the school directors, representatives of the General Secretary of the ES, the Parents’ Association, the City of Frankfurt and a delegation from the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), the representatives of Germany wanted to report on the developments since the last major meeting in Berlin on 29 April 2014.

The good news first:
Germany acknowledges its contractual obligations and will pay rent for the short- and mid-term solutions (containers and the modular building) provided by the ECB and PA. However, the BMBF representatives maintained they had not been fully and timely informed about the constructions and so this financial contribution was entirely a goodwill gesture. When the PA representative stated that without this fast and un-bureaucratic measure two hundred students would not have been admitted to the ESF for the 2014/15 school year, the BMBF responded with silence.

From February 2015 the PA modular building, financed by the ECB and rented by Germany, will during the school hours host the Pre-Primary and P1 classes. In the afternoon it will be available for Childminding and Afternoon Activities.

So far so good!
However, the long-term prospects are less promising. It seems that the BMBF plans to keep delaying the decision on the final solution to the ESF problems. According to the BMBF representatives, the feasibility study will only be finalized by the end of 2015 (which they already consider very ambitious, in view of the complexity of the task). This also means that funds for further activities can only be provided in the 2017 federal budget. If we add two or three more years for planning, looking for a suitable location; public tenders; finalising the financing, etc., the final solution for the ESF will not be delivered before 2020, and more realistically in 2022/23.

If the forecasted school growth materialises, the number of students enrolled at the European School Frankfurt in its current location will double between 2013/14 and the completion of the new school in 202X. Moreover, the land currently used by the PA for the afternoon childcare will have to be returned in the foreseeable future to the city of Frankfurt (it has been earmarked for a road that will relieve traffic in Heerstraße) and cannot be used for school extension or as an outdoor facility. As a result, we will reach a point when our children will not have enough space to move around, most classes will be held in containers, and the necessary infrastructure such as sports hall, canteen, even toilets and sanitary facilities will be temporary or will not exist at all. Not to mention the enormous transport problems in the neighbourhood such useless strategy will cause.
Germany has frequently raised the argument that tax money must not be wasted. This sounds ludicrous if we look at the current scenario. It is clear that short- and mid-term measures are much more expensive, and yet they cannot replace a permanent solution.

We have heard from reliable sources there was a proposal within the feasibility study team to provide a quick permanent solution. An investor who owns a property had offered to build a school for 2,500 students within a few years. One of the BMBF employees even remembered a video conference held to discuss this proposal. But this option was rejected for formal reasons.
After the meeting in Berlin in April and another three-hour meeting on 3 November the Parents' Association can no longer regard the BMBF as a partner with whom we can constructively work on solving the ESF's urgent issues.
The continued delay tactics by the German Authorities in providing the long overdue required schooling infrastructure negatively influences our children’s daily learning process. The directors, teachers and parents spend a lot of time and effort adapting our children's school day to the difficult circumstances.

We should not forget that this situation has a negative effect on the quality of teaching. The school is hardly able to guarantee a high level of tuition we used to enjoy.

This leads to another topic: the school and parents also feel disappointed by the ECB that advertises the school as one of the benefits for staff working for it. Many of us have come to Frankfurt with our families, also because we believed that the ESF is a good school within the European School system that would guarantee our children a high quality education.
Can the ESF ensure good quality education in the coming years or will it be better to keep our children in the national school systems? This we believe could mean that the ECB would find it a lot harder to recruit staff from all EU member states.