In this spirit, the city of Nice conducted a large survey in March and April 2006 involving families, teachers, and municipal staff, totaling 30,506 people, offering them the following options:
– Maintain the current school rhythm (4.5-day week; classes on Saturday morning, maintaining the current school holiday system),
– Replace Saturday morning with Wednesday morning (4.5-day week; classes on Wednesday morning; maintaining the current school holiday system),
– Eliminate Saturday morning (transition to a 4-day week, i.e., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and reduction of school holidays).
63.27% of the people surveyed opted for this change in schedules. This choice was later confirmed by the school councils, with 64.84% in favor. As of the 2006 school year, the Municipal Council adopted a resolution to this effect, before referring it to the Inspector of the Academy, who was responsible for the final decision. The 4-day week was adopted.
Eliminating a Saturday morning work session without immediately replacing it with a Wednesday morning session required a revamp of the annual calendar. Thus, through a movement of recovery days (12 in total), taken from the holiday calendar as well as some worked full-day Wednesdays, the total number of working days remains unchanged. The comparative calendar, 4-day week/5-day week, is as follows:
School Start
4-day School: Start Tuesday, August 28
5-day School: Start Monday, September 3
Holidays
Toussaint (4 days): Friday, October 26 to Thursday, November 8
Toussaint (5 days): Saturday, October 27 to Thursday, November 8
Christmas (4 days): Friday, December 21 to Monday, January 7
Christmas (5 days): Saturday, December 22 to Monday, January 7
Winter (4 days): Friday, February 8 to Monday, February 25
Winter (5 days): Saturday, February 9 to Monday, February 25
Spring (4 days): Tuesday, April 8 to Monday, April 21
Spring (5 days): Saturday, April 5 to Monday, April 21
Summer (4 days): Friday, July 4 to Wednesday evening, August 27
Summer (5 days): Thursday, July 3 to Wednesday evening, August 27
Exceptional school days on Wednesday, March 26, April 30, May 7, May 14, as well as August 29 in place of Monday, August 27.
Informatics is modernized in Nice schools
At the start of the 2007-2008 school year, besides the four-day week, another “revolution” is taking place in the 162 nursery and elementary schools in the city of Nice: the renewal of the computer inventory and its full deployment.
Thus, to enable teaching teams to benefit from the most efficient and best-suited computer equipment to technological changes, about 2,200 units will be deployed across Nice schools, including in nursery classes, IT rooms, administrative offices, libraries, etc.
– Start of the operation: mid-October
– End of the operation: mid-March
– 2,250 units renewed in primary schools and deployed in nursery schools
– 1 euro per unit, the amount spent by the City to acquire these computers, which came at the end of their lease.
These Pentium 4 technology computers will be reconditioned to be more manageable for children, facilitating computer maintenance as well. The order of deployment was decided by drawing lots.
