“In three specific events, the threats led to police operations. In all cases, the justice system continues to investigate the facts and the responsibilities of both the students and the parents,” the Head of Government Jorge Macri launched at a press conference and added: “There is something that is irreplaceable: the conversation at home.”
It’s true. Many specialists agree that dialogue with children is essential. And in line with that reasoning they assert that “education is born at home.” What is also true is that the presence of a strong, active State, with resources and suitable personnel, is also essential to prevent different events such as, for example, violence in schools.
The Buenos Aires mayor summoned all the media and a large part of his cabinet to a press conference to talk about school safetywithin the framework of the events that went viral on networks where threatening phrases appeared in the bathrooms of Buenos Aires schools that warned of an imminent shooting inside the school buildings.
The Government indicated that, given the alerts, Actions were coordinated between the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Public Guardianship Ministry, the City Police and the Council on the Rights of Girls, Boys and Adolescentsin addition to the activation of the “Action Protocol for the protection and safeguarding of situations of violation of the rights of girls, boys and adolescents”, in force since last year.
So much the exhibitions of Jorge Macri as that of his Minister of Education, Mercedes Miguel, revolved around this coordinated work, dialogue at home and prevention. But In the City of Buenos Aires, is there real prevention work on school violence?
As soon as the shooting occurred at the school in the town of San Cristóbal, in the province of Santa Fe, where a student murdered a classmate, Time warned about the dismantling of the City’s interdisciplinary teams that deal with different problems such as mental health, domestic violence and abuse in Buenos Aires students.
In the City of Buenos Aires The School Guidance Teams (EOE) that deal with these problems are practically unfunded, understaffed and totally collapsed.
On February 15, Time published in its printed edition a report based on official dataunder the title “public school interdisciplinary teams collapse in the face of adjustment.” The figures on the emptying of these interdisciplinary teams were obtained through a request for access to public information. From this medium, we put in context to review the critical situation for which They go through the School guidance teams.
These serious acts of school violence are usually addressed or detected in depth through the EOE: interdisciplinary groups of psychologists, psychopedagogues, social workers, who operate in initial, primary and secondary educational institutions. But after several cuts made in the governments of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and Jorge Macri, today they find themselves with fewer and fewer professionals and overwhelmed with work.
According to the testimony of several EOE professionals, who requested confidentiality of identity, “Recently, self-harm and suicidal ideation have increased significantly.” in primary school children, events that previously occurred in secondary school adolescents.”
Following this panorama, Time presented a request for access to public information to know the current situation of these teams, the demand received in the two years of Jorge Macri’s management, and the scenarios they go through daily.
According to official figures for the 2025 school year, approximately 350 thousand students attend Buenos Aires initial and primary schools, and around 52% (182,000) are students from state-run schools.
In the period consulted (December 10, 2023 until December 10, 2025)the EOE received a total of 36,532 requests for intervention, of which 17,337 correspond to the year 2024 and 19,195 to the year 2025. Of that total “they rose to Council on the Rights of Children and Adolescents, 6,699 situations: 3,302 from the year 2024 and 3,397 from the 2025 cycle.” Each request corresponds to a student, that is: of the total number of state management students in the last two years, almost 21% were victims of some problem.
Official figures show that demand increased by 10.7% from one year to the next, with interdisciplinary teams that are collapsed and do not exceed 20 professionals in some school districts and in others they barely reach 13.
The official response from CABA indicates that “the structure of the EOE contemplates the assignment of a team per school district for the initial and primary levels, covering common, normal and artistic institutions.”
“The difference between the EOE of the Province of Buenos Aires and the City is that in the Buenos Aires schools the teams are housed within the schools and work for that student population, however, in the City of Buenos Aires, EOEs are divided by school districts and each of them covers different neighborhoods and dozens of schools,” explained a member of the EOE. To give an example: one of the most vulnerable districts in the southern part of the City has 24 primary schools and 16 kindergartens and only one team to address these situations.
Collapsed equipment and alarming data
“Our teams are overwhelmed with different problems and we cannot cope, I do not have a defined figure, but we estimate that in order to work in decent conditions and be able to follow up on each situation, we need to at least triple our resources“, he explained to Time a psychopedagogue who integrates the EOE.
Given the official figures provided by the GCBA, it is very difficult to contradict the professional. School district 17 is the one that needs the most resources and one of the ones that has the most requests with different problems records per year. The figure is alarming: it currently has only 12 professionals (1 coordinator; 5 social workers; 2 psychologists and 4 psychopedagogues).
As a counterpoint, school district 6 has 22 professionals (1 coordinator; 6 social workers; 8 psychologists and 7 psychopedagogues), and it is one of the districts that is not included among those with the highest number of casesaccording to official data.
“What always remains as a common denominator is that we have no response for serious situations. For example, the classrooms are overcrowded and the teacher in charge has to identify them, but With all the problems that exist, it cannot cope. Schools would have to work more as a pedagogical couplebecause many times they run to the EOE when there are already situations of children who have no way of learning what the teacher teaches everyone equally,” a psychologist who works in an EOE in the southern zone explained to this medium.
Which are the districts with the greatest problems?
It is not surprising that the school districts with high demand are mostly those made up of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the City.
In this regard, the official response highlights: “The school districts that register the greatest number of cases, in descending order, are: School District #5, School District #19, School District #1, School District #17, and School District #4; and the problems most worked on by the EOE are: learning difficulties; violation of rights (mistreatment, sexual abuse, absenteeism and desertion); school coexistence (conflicts and violence between peers, family-school coexistence, family-family coexistence); mental health (psychological conditions, self-harm, suicidal ideation).
It should be noted that School District 5 covers the neighborhoods of Barracas, La Boca and Parque Patricios; School District 19 Villa Soldati, Bajo Flores and Nueva Pompeya; School District 1 the neighborhoods of Retiro, San Nicolás, Puerto Madero, San Telmo, Montserrat and Constitución; and School District 17 includes the neighborhoods of Villa Pueyrredón, Devoto, Parque Chas and Villa Urquiza.
