Programa Escola Integrada: a atuação do gestor escolar

Abstract

This research discusses the Integrated School Program, implemented by the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, through its Department of Education in 2006. The Program is based on the guiding principles of social inclusion, integral education and on the concept of an Educative City. Therefore education is not limited to the school environment and recognizes the educational potential of multiple institutions in the community and city. The program extends the school day to nine hours, incorporates to the educational environment new actors who share the task of teaching. This study aims to analyze the implementation of the program by managers from two municipal schools of Belo Horizonte, here named Schools A and B. The adopted research methodology is the semi-structured interview, as the most suitable resource for collecting data for qualitative research, and theoretical foundation by means of academic discussion and documentary analysis. The research reveals dilemmas in the context of the policy implementation and its unfolding challenges to school managers. Among others, the challenge of setting an integrated curriculum that articulates the program activities with those planned by the teachers, based on consensus built in the Political-Pedagogic Project of the schools covered in the study. Another challenge is the low uptake and comprehension of the program by the teachers. The analysis of the field and bibliographical research enable to present, at the end of this paper, an Educational Procedure Proposal, in order to improve the Integrated School Program and optimize the efforts undertaken.