The Berlin education administration remains in the hands of the SPD, and not only parents react bitterly to this. For a quarter of a century in the hands of the Social Democrats, the department has given a shocking picture of the last places in the nationwide education ranking.
Senator Sandra Scheeres and her State Secretary Beate Stoffers also caused chaos in detail. Since August, they have also been taking legal action against allegedly incorrect reporting by the Berliner Zeitung about the State Ballet School. So that the idea does not arise that the newspaper would therefore restrict its reporting, here is an overview of the failure and waste of the administration, which only affects one of 800 Berlin schools.
Terminations without notice for the directors of the ballet school
A brief look back to November 2019. At that time, the State Ballet had a particularly high need for dance students from the ballet school. Possibly there was a greater exposure, as teachers claimed and reported to the school inspectorate. The school management and administration immediately commission an independent scientific institute to investigate the allegations.
In January, the education administration canceled the work, they now apparently had other plans. She had received an anonymous dossier from four informers with a number of false accusations. The allegations should now be collected by an “expert commission” without dance experts and a clearing house, but not checked.
Without waiting for results, the director of the school Ralf Stabel and the artistic director Gregor Seyffert were released in February 2020 and were banned from the house. Both were at the school for 17 years, the longest of professorships. Terminations without notice followed. In August 2021, the Senate lost all trials. A judge put it in a nutshell in the appeal process against Stabel: “There is no reason for a dismissal. The allegations are all air bubbles. “
The commissions actually reported scandalous occurrences to the press, but did not name a single case. To this day there has been no act, no perpetrator, no victim. The associated financial disaster is considerable.
A new director for the ballet school was sought as early as mid-2020
Of course, the two slaughtered leaders have to be paid the lost salaries. The ruined reputation will not be replaced. The new staff costs additional. In an inquiry, the FDP MP Stefan Förster found out about some expenses for this escalating legal dispute. For example, for a job advertisement that was looking for a successor to head the ballet school in mid-2020. The ad read: “Berlin is looking for smart people. Berlin is looking for you! ”The new headmaster was immediately used. The administration placed this advertisement in a number of media, but not in the Berliner Zeitung. At that time, she reported critically. These advertisements alone cost a total of 79,500 euros, although the office has not yet been filled.
Believe it or not, 166,950 euros were spent on the commissions, which also included auditors. As a result, for example, the state youth ballet was abolished, the elite character of the school and the training of foreigners were questioned.
The external legal fees for the expulsion of the two heads initially amount to 30,000 euros, plus court and legal fees for the opposing party for lost processes in the second instance, apparently still unquantified. But the education administration has not yet had enough. Now she is proceeding in a third instance against the well-founded court ruling, according to which the doctorate dance scientist Ralf Stabel was rightly allowed to work for 13 years as head of a ballet school, although he lacks a teaching degree. Now the Federal Labor Court is to decide whether he was allowed to do the work at all. It is not clear whether the court will even accept the bizarre lawsuit in which the administration is taking action against its own decision to appoint the headmaster. Until then, Stabel is not allowed to go back to school.
Gregor Seyffert was not allowed to return to ballet school
Even the artistic director Gregor Seyffert was not allowed to return despite a clear judgment. The choreographer was offered – it couldn’t be more absurd – a speaker position in the education administration on the grounds that his previous job was no longer available. Seyffert’s lawyer disagreed: door plates and website said otherwise. Then the signs were removed.
Seyffert’s long-time deputy was also released from his duties – he will, however, go to court in January. Perhaps there he will meet the administrative justiciar, who was already abusive during the trial against Seyffert. Seyffert’s lawyer filed charges against the legal advisor for insult and defamation. After that he had called the artist in court, among other things, as a “horny stilted buck”.
If you add the salaries for the internal employees as well as the pending legal dispute with the Berliner Zeitung – 31,000 euros apparently for the external lawyer alone – the waste is estimated at 500,000 euros to a million in the end. Scheeres and Stoffers leave their department behind, it remains with the SPD.
Only 133 children are still registered at the ballet school
All because a nasty little school conflict was not properly clarified, but jazzed up with media coverage. And the result? The state ballet school has not had an artistically qualified director for 20 months, a kind of hostility towards performance seems to be school doctrine – the school is clearly in decline. Only 133 instead of the usual 180 to 210 children are still registered, just six newcomers in the first year. How could the State Ballet with 70 children from this school have safely planned its “Nutcracker” performances?
Officially, interim director Christiane Theobald stated that the production had to be checked, that it contained costumes with a “caricature” note and not “authentic” Chinese dances. It’s good that the program cleanup caused ridicule and malice, and not just in feature sections. The fate of the ballet school, on the other hand, takes its course without media attention.
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