School woes & a time out
End of school year woes for many, and a time out on the grocery card distribution programme.
Several Ukrainian mothers told me this week that their children did not pass the "MIKA-D" oral, subjective German test, given in Austrian public schools, and have been told by those state schools that their children must repeat the year, in some cases for the third time. Yes, really. You can imagine how distraught and upset they are, and worried for their kids. As one mother told me, “how can my daughter, who will be 10, be asked to sit in a second grade classroom, again, with 7 year olds?!”. There is no answer, in my mind, that can justify this.
I see the entire set-up: first put many (but not all — the lucky ones got placed in “normal” classrooms) Ukrainian kids in “integration” classrooms where they learn very little German because they are surrounded by children who also do not speak German at home, then offer them a subjective, oral test with no advance warning for which one cannot really study, and on the basis of that test, judged by the teacher and/or school director who may or may not already have prejudices against that child, the refugee parent is then informed if her child is able to move forward to the next school year. It is a system designed for failure and designed to send the message maybe you should think about going home.
Honestly, I cannot think of a worse way to encourage kids to learn German. On top of this, many of the Ukrainian children were not graded this year, in any subject, not even math. On paper they say this is to let them ease into things, in practice that means they cannot easily to go another school and say please give me a chance. It is, honestly, madness.
This is a photo a mother sent me. Her first grade daughter was called into the director’s office and asked to use her German to describe what was happening in the photo. I consider myself to be able to say most things needed for daily life in German, but I would not know how to say “the man with the feather on his head is warming his hands by the fire”. How would a seven year old who arrived from Ukraine a year ago not knowing a word of German? This mother has even been spending money they don’t really have (she works part-time in a local hotel bakery in a small town near the Czech border) on online German tutoring, having found a German teacher in Kharkiv for her daughter. I do not yet know the results of the test. The parents never have warning. The child simply comes home and says “I had to go to the director’s office today and answer questions about a picture”.
Other parents were simply handed notes like this one by their children, which informs the mother than her son did not pass the MIKA-D test (not in so many words, but indirectly) and therefore “must attend an integration class” and “repeat the 5th grade”. The parents are then asked to date and sign that they have read the document. There is no room for discussion, at least per the paper.
Now you imagine you have been fighting all the other daily battles of life in a new country with limited financial means. And then your child brings home a note like this at the end of June. Of course a natural reaction would be to throw your hands in the air, give up on Austria, and go back to Ukraine, provided you have a place to go home to. Others, who are settled in, with jobs, really don’t know what to do. Some want to try applying to other schools, if the current school said the child must repeat the year. But in practice, no one knows how this will work, and it is totally absurd, just imagine all the Ukrainian kids who already have schools running around at the last minute trying to find new schools (and all the hassle that entails) just so they might have a chance to move from third to fourth grade with everyone else. Madness.
Instead of supporting in learning a new language, this system only hurts children’s self-confidence. These kids have had covid, an actual war, life in a new country, in most cases without their fathers. Could the system not give them a break? No, because the system itself is designed to break people. Of that I am convinced. The MIKA-D mess (which I wrote about earlier here) is a result of policies implemented by a conservative-far right coalition government in 2017. If it had existed when my own kids moved here ten years ago, their futures would have looked very different indeed. Instead, they were put in normal classrooms, learned German slowly, with the help of tutoring, and now my eldest, who got an “F” on his first German exam in gymnasium (and it was a miracle they accepted him; his fourth grade written exam was back then in English as it was a bilingual Volksschule class), now has an “A” in German but it took YEARS. To expect any kind of massive progress in just one year of traumatised children without funding for additional tutoring is totally unrealistic.
I got my haircut on Friday. My hairdresser, who owned two salons in Dnipro and now works for minimum wage, is working full-time in a Vienna salon, and has three children she is raising on her own. Her eldest two attend a Catholic gymnasium on scholarship (tuition waved), and they will advance to the next school year with no problem. Her youngest, however, is in a public Volksschule, in fourth grade, and on Thursday the teacher informed Lena, the mother, that her son would not be able to attend fifth grade in a middle school. He would have to repeat fourth grade. Now imagine you are a working, single mom in a new country, you cannot micro-manage school stuff, and you are told this with two weeks left in the school year. I felt awful hearing the news, not having any good advice other than try and ask the Catholic school if they might help? I had no idea that a middle school could even turn down a child of age for fifth grade; I thought they have to accept everyone. Is that not the point, gymnasium is academically selective, middle school is not?!
Just as I left the hairdresser, I got a DM from a journalist asking about this specific issue. The dreaded MIKA-D tests. I gave him the contacts of many of these moms. I hope they will film a report this week. This week the teachers in schools across the east of Austria will sit down in “Konferenz” and talk about each student’s grades. That means they will also talk about the MIKA-D tests and the Ukrainian kids. There are already rumours amongst the Ukrainian moms that some children will also in the older years not be allowed to progress from middle to high school, while others have told me that even if they were told their child passed the MIKA-D test, a transfer to the next grade has not yet been confirmed.
I feel like this is some 19th century bullshit, like education is only for the privileged few, and the rest of you should pack up and go home.
“Good day. I have a lot to say about the MIKA-D test. My daughter is nine and a half, they are sending her back to second grade in Austrian school again from September. I went to the director, it was like talking to a wall. In October my daughter will turn 10 and she will be in a class with 7 year olds.”
There are other, more banal school woes. Like a mother whose daughter is a straight-A student at a Vienna gymnasium (an incredible accomplishment in itself). The class is part of the federal government “laptop” program, which means everyone must get a state-issued laptop, and parents must pay 25%, or €116. There is a form for low-income families to apply for a waiver. The mother applied, and was rejected. She was rejected because “Grundversorgung” is not one of the categories in the law, but the law was written in 2021.
The bureaucrats writing such letters obviously cannot string three brain cells together to understand that folks in Grundversogung have far less financial means than all the categories who do qualify for a waiver. The mother wrote everyone, even the school parents’ association, who replied they could not help pay but surely the mother must qualify. That is the thing. Surely she must qualify but no one can make a machine that is incapable of an independent, logical thought react. The very kind school director wrote back that he too thinks she will not qualify, on that technicality, but give him a week, he will try to find another solution. I told the mother to let me know if the money is not found this week, we will find it. But that is not the point. The point is this is a structural problem because no one in politics cares to fix even the way the laws are written and how they are applied to the most vulnerable groups of people. Grundversorgung is for asylum-seekers. The Ukrainians continue to pay the price for having been stuck in the “wrong” category, whose children it would seem are not supposed to go to school and have a need for laptops…
A mother of three contacted me from Lower Austria. The school called social services on her. They questioned her children without her present while they were at school. They ask all sorts of questions about where does their mom have money from and where is the dad. The mom is living on Grundversorgung and is not wealthy. All these questions started when there was a school ski trip, the Ukrainian children were invited free of charge, and then showed up in borrowed ski clothes. The teachers and director took one look a the nice (borrowed!) ski clothes, and decided there was something fishy. All of us in my group chat warned the mother that the last organization you want to have anything to do with in Austria is social services. That once children are removed from parents’ care, it is usually very hard to get them back. The horror of such stories is the foundation for inquiry always feels like jealousy, xenophobia, cultural differences, and perhaps outright dislike of where taxpayer funds are going, and people in positions of power over vulnerable (refugees and their children) abuse the little local authority they have. Mom talked about maybe moving to Germany. Maybe it would be better there. Other Ukrainians noted even a move within Austria sometimes fixes things. One family had a terrible time in Vienna, found an apartment in Graz, moved, and could not be happier. Scary. These messages scare the shit out of my as I have been in contact with several Ukrainians over the past year and a half who have had their parental rights threatened. You do not want to be in that situation. Period.
Babies being born. Pregnancy care. The cycle of life continues. I have fielded many such questions this week. Some mothers go home to Ukraine to visit their husbands and come back pregnant. It is exciting and scary at the same time. But one thing is clear, war or no war: life marches on. These questions are no longer one-offs, they become routine. Congratulations, this is what you need to know, don’t worry you have nine months to figure it all out…as does death, sadly. I was contacted a few days ago by Viktoria. I wrote about her and her husband Viktor here.
Viktoria told me she was able to receive €400 from a charity towards the funeral costs, and now that she is back in Austria, she is desperately looking for a job. She has A2 German, and would probably best suited for office work. She is a keen student of German and I think will progress quickly. She unfortunately does not speak English; she studied French in school. If anyone has any leads for Viktoria in her job search, please do let me know.
I wrote earlier this week I would be limiting my supermarket card distribution going forward to mothers with kids, pensioners, and handicapped.
Now, seeing the slowed pace of donations (this happened naturally over months and months, and I was able to continue thanks to the generosity of a few major donors who kept me going), I think it is prudent to take a pause. I simply don’t want to build up a waiting list of hundreds and then be constantly asked when is my card coming when I don’t know if I will even be able to raise funds. So I posted last night about 16 empty envelopes, and by this morning they were funded. Thank you so much. I will send them out tomorrow.
I spoke with Mario and our donations on Cards for Ukraine have also slowed to a trickle. Which is totally understandable. The war has been dragging on for nearly a year and a half, domestic inflation is biting everyone, and hard, and most refugees have admittedly had a lot of time already to try and put their financial lives together, even if they are running against the wind at every corner. The website waiting list will not be met. A few regular donors have kept us going, but it is clear we will not cover the waiting list of 1000s. Still, 20 or 40 cards a month is far better than nothing. For those families, they make a huge difference. Again, thank you.
I am also personally having a hard time with the 24/7 answering of texts and desperate pleas and when will my card arrive and sense I need to take a little break. Hit the pause button, reevaluate, etc. I therefore would like to finish out this school year by taking care of my empty envelope pile, and then taking a step back to think about the best ways to help going forward. I don’t know what that will look like yet. I will conduct a few more interviews this week. I know stories are important, and it has been a while since I shared some. A few women reached out and told me they would like to share their journeys.
So that is where we are. Thank you to all of you for your ongoing support, and for making it possible to take one day at a time for this many months and counting. If a news story does emerge on the school situation for Ukrainian kids in Austria, I will share it. The worst part about hearing all the stories is not really knowing what advice to give. I do not know if they can simply collect their child’s documents and apply for a different school so as not to repeat the year. I wish I knew what to tell them. If it was me, and I had an apartment and a job to go back to, I would be packing my bags for Ukraine. But it isn’t that simple. It never is. And when it comes to our kids, we love them so much, we try to make the best possible decisions. In this case, the system is unfortunately showing very little empathy, to put it mildly. Does being a refugee mean your child is not entitled to having their emotional well-being taken into consideration? Are we really turning the clock that far back?
My heart brakes (for several reasons!).
And unfortunately you are right:
1.) The horror of such stories is the foundation for inquiry always feels like jealousy, xenophobia, cultural differences, and perhaps outright dislike of where taxpayer funds are going, and people in positions of power over vulnerable (refugees and their children) abuse the little local authority they have.
2.) Could the system not give them a break? No, because the system itself is designed to break people. Of that I am convinced. The MIKA-D mess (which I wrote about earlier here) is a result of policies implemented by a conservative-far right coalition government in 2017.
May I add:
The so-called conservatives are no better than the extreme right-wing FPÖ. And in some federal states they are already forming coalitions again. That tells everything!
I will continue to directly support my dear Liia and her two young children (monthly) for as long as I possibly can. Promise!
Yes, please take some time off and try to get your head clear - and your heart calmer. And yes, your own family needs you too - and you should be able to enjoy your lovely family too.
I have learned so much because of you!!! (Although I have had an Afghan godson for 6 years, and had a lot of experience with Austria's xenophobia, believe me!)
So far ... just "thank you" for everything and a big hug,
yours Regina
Thank you for the update Tanja. You’ve done so much for so many since this began. It’s ok and sometimes even necessary to step back, take a breath, and take time for yourself and your family. You deserve it.