What is going to happen to the temporary classrooms in the Marxstraße?

If you drive along the Marxstraße in Oberursel you can’t help noticing the empty classrooms at one end of the road next to the Red Cross building and just before the entrance to Rolls Royce.

These „temporary“ classrooms have now been there for just over 25 years, and have over the course of those years been home to classes from Frankfurt International School (FIS), the primary school in Oberstedten, the primary school in Bommersheim and the grammar school (Gymnasium).

But now they stand empty and at the town council meeting last week the CDU party put forward no less than two motions on what to do with them, which led into another two motions on after-school child-care places.

The first suggestion was to have the buildings checked out to see if they can offer additional after-school places until others become available. This needed very little discussion, as, apparently, there is a tradition for all parties to support motions to “check” things, so-called “Prüfanträge”.

The second suggestion was to create a recreational area for town’s youth next to the existing basketball court, after the classrooms have been removed.

The site appears to be perfect, with one idea being for a skate-board area, because their are no direct neighbours who might complain about the noise.

(Click to enlarge)

If only the CDU had put this into their first motion, the one to “check” the situation, then they might have saved a lot of discussion and alternative suggestions.

The OBG suggested that the area could be an alternative to the Altkönigsportplatz which may be sold off next year to fund the new swimming pool.

The SPD pointed out that the Red Cross (DRK) could make better use of it.

And the Green Party added the fire brigade to the list.

At which point the SPD suggested making it into a “Prüfantrag”, which the CDU agreed to and everyone voted in favour of the motion, with the Green Party suggesting that they should wait for the first motion to be checked in case the buildings remained in place after all.

This all led to an interesting report in the Taunus Zeitung on Saturday morning that included plans for the Red Cross and fire brigade in particular that the council had not even discussed!

But what about those other two motions about after-school child-care places?

The first required the town to find out exactly how many parents need such places for their children and to make sure that they are available. In face, the town is trialling a system called “Little Bird” which is meant to co-ordinate the whole system to make sure that parents are not registering their children at more than one place to ensure a place, meaning that other parents get turned down, only for the second choice places of those first parents to remain empty.

As I understand it correctly, it works a bit like the UCAS clearing system for university places.

After some discussion about how the system could have already been in place for this year, the CDU turned this into a “Prüfantrag” as well, and with some amendments by the other parties the motion was unanimously carried.

The final motion on this topic asked the town (yes, this one was already put forward as a “Prüfantrag”) to see if there were rooms in the Kindergartens that could be used in the afternoon for after-school places for first years.

Perhaps they should have stopped while they were ahead, because the SPD now brought the topic of “Ganztagsschulen” (all-day schools) into the discussion. But unfortunately this is not something that the town is responsible for, so this was unanimously referred to a sub-committee.

So what about those buildings in the Marxstraße?

Well, yes, it makes sense to do something with them before they get too run down. And maybe something can be done on the playground area for the skateboarders. But I can remember times when the town was glad to have some form of emergency classrooms when other buildings suddenly became unavailable, so they should think very carefully about removing them altogether.