Schools and education for Prague 5

What exactly, within 4 years

• A service center for schools. One professional hub for all 13 elementary schools and 21 preschools: legal advice, IT, procurement, GDPR, grants, safety, teaching methods. Each school gets its own person on the phone and clear deadlines. We will start with one coordinator and contracts with specialists on the two or three most pressing areas, and expand based on the experience of the first year. The goal is to leave principals more time for children and less for paperwork.
• Fair preschool enrollment close to home. We will move enrollment online, with rules parents know in advance. Every year we will publish how many children did not get in and where places were left. Today's numbers say nothing, because a single child easily submits five applications at once. We will divide Prague 5 into three or four smaller zones so no one has to drive a child across the whole district, and each zone will have at least one class for children under three. Where places will be missing, we will know in advance: we will prepare temporary classes and co-finance new preschools with money from developers.
• Sharing specialist staff. Schools will share a speech therapist, a psychologist and special educators so even the smallest schools can reach them. We will introduce universal speech screening for preschoolers and a shared capacity of special educators for all of Prague 5. It frees principals from paperwork and gives them professional backing.
• A methodology center for developing talent. We will teach teachers how to work with differences in the classroom: with gifted children and with those falling behind, with a different first language, and with a combination of talent and disability. Instead of one-off training sessions they will get practical modules, demonstration lessons and consultations right at the school. We will look for talent through universal screening, not only through competitions. At every elementary school one specific person will be responsible for talent, with a simple support plan, in cooperation with Charles University.
• Professional principals and active school boards. Principal selection will be driven by expertise and vision, not political connections, and will run transparently. A new principal will get a mentor for the first hundred days, and principals will have their own forum for sharing experience. Today school boards mostly just nod through the annual report. We will give them a handbook, train the founding authority's representatives, and the boards will start dealing with the real development of the school.
• Getting children ready for school. A place in preschool is not enough on its own. For children who need more preparation, and for those who do not speak Czech at home, we will offer preparatory clubs, cooperation with parents and a smooth transition from preschool into first grade.