- It’s like a trial – innocent until proven guilty. A teacher must do 25 things before punishing an undisciplined one
- Idea: a few days for the child to study alone at home
Students fought in Sandanski on Monday, the vice-principal was also injured. Four 16- and 17-year-olds had an argument during the big break in a nearby establishment next to the building of the Professional Technical High School. The altercation turned into an exchange of fists and kicks, teachers came running and called 112. By the time the police arrived, the deputy director Vasilka Bogoeva stood between the fighting men, but they pushed her to the ground. The woman has a bruise on her leg. A pre-trial proceeding has been established, the pedagogical adviser will work with the bullies.
A teacher’s meeting was immediately held, but the young people did not tell each other what caused the aggression between them and who started the fight. Their parents were also called, they provide assistance to the teachers.
What drives four
students who have not had problems so far – they are not conflict children, they have participated in many extracurricular events,
to attack by knocking down their deputy director.
And what to do? The Pedagogical Council meets to think about measures against such incidents.
But it is clear that neither the paint in the breaks will disappear, nor the sight of students smoking near the school building, often with a can of beer in hand. Or your child will no longer tell how his classmate disrupted the whole class from learning.
Do the rules in the school community mean nothing today, parents and teachers wonder. And most of all – what to change.
Principals say that teachers literally have their hands tied. The notes they enter in the electronic diary either do not make an impression on the parents and they do not reflect them at all, or else they are infuriated – how will bad words be written about their child.
And if the parents of the 4 teenagers from Sandanski immediately declared that they would cooperate, then on a massive scale recently the families have shown serious resistance and destroyed the teacher’s authority, the principals share their impressions.
They call the teachers, have long conversations explaining that they disagree with the remark
This renders the measure meaningless. The educator does not have the opportunity to apply any disciplinary approaches, even the most elementary one such as the remark, comments the director of the capital’s 119th Diyan Stamatov, who is also the chairman of the Union of leaders in the public education system. The parents were of the opinion that the school should deal with any problem without involving them. This breaks the relationship between the parents and the school. The system clearly needs an upgrade, says Stamatov.
If parents have requirements for the institution, they should also have requirements for their own children. The whole system thinks that it is a problem that the rules are not being implemented and that the legislation is perhaps not very clearly described how they should be applied, says the director of the 32nd school “St. Kliment Ohridski” Neli Kostova.
The former Minister of Education Krasimir Valchev counted
25 procedural steps before a teacher can impose a sanction
of disobedient.
They are recorded in the Preschool and School Education Act and in the Ordinance on Inclusive Education. A notification to the parent must be delivered to him personally, then he must come, have a conversation, support, and he refuses… After that, it can be interpreted that you take away his right if you want to move him to another school. The teacher must write reports, prove.
A sanction is like a trial – the student is innocent until proven otherwise, sums up Krasimir Valchev. And finally the result is that teachers refrain from imposing it. It is both hamology and does not lead to a result. All possible are appealed – from the remark from the principal to the transfer warning to the transfer to another class or another school.
The former minister and his colleagues believe that it is good to introduce an education class, and the best option is to “teach” it during religion classes, although optional.
Asen Alexandrov, the director of the 51st school “Elisaveta Bagryana” in the capital, also confirms the desire of the parents to appeal the sanctions. It’s like they see it as their duty, he says.
Thus the sanctions are rendered meaningless, because in essence they are
call for help
to the parents, they do not harm the children in any way, the teacher explains. However, they tell you that you are lying. That is why I myself canceled a sanction that I had imposed, says Alexandrov.
10-12 years ago there was
100 sanctions per year – for many delays, smoking, aggression. Today, arguments with parents demotivated and outright refused teachers in their attempts to restore order, because families do not count on this call for help to them, says the director.
Otherwise, in the rules of the 51st school, it is written that in the case of 5 remarks by teachers, the disciplinary sanction of a remark by the director should be imposed, in the case of 10 – a warning for transfer to another school. “Some students are accumulating remarks at such a speed that we literally have to overwhelm ourselves with such punishments. In the last 3-4 years in the 51st there are 7-8 penalties as a note. We are already afraid to write even it as the lightest sanction, admits Aleksandrov.
According to him, it is a good approach in many countries that the punishment of students is
suspension from school for a certain number of days,
and the requirement is for the child to prove that he has taken all the material home by means of a test upon return. If it is small, a parent is obliged to stay with him, which makes the punishment double – both the student is at home and the mother stays at home and does not go to work. This had a disciplining effect on the whole family. Next time, parents will think about whether to stubbornly prove that their child is innocent, explains Alexandrov.
The purpose of the sanction is not to stigmatize the student, but to give him a sign that he needs to learn, the director of the French High School, Emilia Bogdanova, is categorical, who was also not spared from nervous situations at school.
Recently from the delegated budget
paid BGN 1,000 to the lawyer of the opposite party, who won a case for annulment of a student’s sanction
Appeals can be made to the head of the regional administration of education, to the administrative court, to the discrimination commission.
However, according to the headmistress of the elite capital high school, sanctions are sometimes imposed not on the worst students. In France, at the beginning of last year, the case in which a student brought a pneumatic pistol into a history lesson made headlines. Then he was taken to an independent form of training. The young man learned his lesson through the unpleasant situation, graduated and is now a student. Then the parents did not appeal.
Less than 5% of parents say: yes, he made a mistake, let him learn a lesson, summarizes Emilia Bogdanova.
Easier to write remarks, and for parents to become partners of teachers and help solve problems, instead of always being against – this is what the principals insist.
However, a change in approach on the part of the school is also needed – not the formal gathering of parents once a term, where they are most often asked for money for various activities. Thousands of mothers and fathers complain that this is the usual form of “communication” between them and the school, especially in junior high and high schools. There are also formal hours for consultations with the class teacher and the other teachers, but most often the teachers neither have time, nor is there a designated place in the building where a possible problem can be calmly and discreetly discussed with the child. And an email exchange is no substitute for such a frank conversation.
Parent meetings should be more frequent
and more often individual, so as not to criticize a child in front of the parents of the whole class – this has not worked for a long time,
say both classmates and parents.
Sanctions should not be appealable in order to make sense and work, the teachers added. They do not harm the child in any way, do not affect his future. They can only make him a more disciplined person.
Research on 24chasa.bg:
20% want this dialogue to stick together, 21% – to deal with the violent child at home. 38% – the teacher should not have his hands tied
13% rely on behavioral assessment
For the teacher to be able to more easily sanction undisciplined children – this is what 38% of the 870 people who voted until 6 p.m. yesterday in a special poll on the “24 Chasa” website want.
We asked readers how to reduce aggression among students.
Another total of 40% choose a different approach – it relies on the parent’s responsibility to educate (21%) and more mutual trust and dialogue between teachers and parents (20%).
Fewer respondents choose possible future school innovations – assessment of student behavior (13%) or education lessons (3.6%).
For 3.6 percent, school psychologists are the ones who have to deal with children showing aggression.
However, only 1.4% claim that there is no need for any changes on this topic in the Bulgarian school.
Apparently, in the eyes of the people, the problem of aggression among students and the educational function of the school is something that can no longer be ignored.
MON: It is important to hear the voice of the children
The approach to a safe school environment must be based on communication as the key to the successful prevention of school violence and bullying, intolerance of hate speech of any kind. The main thing in this process is to hear the voice of the children and take into account their needs, says the MES.
The very often observed forms of physical violence are the end result of prolonged
another type of harassment to which the victim eventually responded
Continuous research, monitoring of adolescent relationships, consideration of various indications of bullying and timely response are necessary, experts remind.
Besides through the budget of each school, the ministry develops national programs and activities on projects co-financed by the European social funds. For the second year, the National Program “Steps Together” for a safe school environment and for the prevention of violence and bullying in schools is running. The achieved results encouraged the Ministry to include main elements of the program, mainly related to work with parents and family support activities in the process of inclusive education, and in the implementation of the project “Support for inclusive education”.
Over 650 teachers have been trained under this project. They have developed conceptual programs that include the creation of new forms and approaches to work with parents – such as
focus groups, parenting workshops, support and mutual aid groups
32 school projects were financed under the program “Support for the personal development of children and students”, covering 11,984 students, 1,066 teachers and 6,135 parents. BGN 500,000 have been provided for 2025 under the program “For a secure educational environment without aggression”.
Currently, 1,380 psychologists and 851 pedagogical advisors are appointed. The MES administers and coordinates the activities of the National Mobile Group for Psychological Support, which was created for the purpose of prevention and crisis intervention in cases of violence.