The city has been intensively planning, building and renovating its schools and daycare centers for almost ten years, but there is no end in sight. For the fifth time since 2014, a major construction program has been approved. Eight schools at seven locations are to be expanded or newly built. The city estimates the costs for this alone to be 690 million euros. If you add up all five school and daycare construction programs, Munich will invest a total of around 8.5 billion euros in new or renovated buildings over a decade.
The decision has already been made in the child and youth welfare committee, and the city council’s education committee is scheduled to follow suit on Wednesday. The majority is in favor, and the town hall coalition made up of the Greens/Pink List and SPD/Volt has already decided on this in advance. “This is a huge program that we are proud of,” said SPD education spokeswoman Julia Schönfeld-Knor. The need for new classrooms, canteens or school gymnasiums is constantly increasing: “We are therefore continuing along this path.”
The Greens are also committed to building for education and care. “We have one of the largest municipal school and daycare construction programs ever in Munich. This shows that the coalition continues to invest in the future of our city,” said parliamentary group leader Sebastian Weisenburger. Despite the tight budget situation, the coalition wants to make little or no savings on the quality of schools and daycare centers. “We create good learning places for good education so that Munich’s children and young people have the best conditions.” It is not for nothing that “visitors from all over the world” come to see the results, said SPD city councilor Schönfeld-Knor.
The fifth package of the school and daycare offensive includes, among other things, five canteens, four sports halls, an indoor swimming pool and a facility for open child and youth work. To this end, additional rooms are to be created for 26 new classrooms and four new groups in a house for children. All seven locations are new buildings or extensions in order to meet the increasing demand, which is primarily caused by immigration, the return to nine-year high school and the requirement for all-day care that will soon be implemented.
One of the most massive packages of the current edition is likely to be the new high school on Dreilingsweg in Pasing-Obermenzing. Six trains, i.e. six classes in each grade, will be accommodated there. The complex also includes a quadruple sports hall, an indoor swimming pool and a youth leisure center. The school campus on Peslmüllerstrasse, also in Pasing, is also facing a major upheaval. The wing with the specialist classrooms of the Bertolt Brecht High School is to be demolished and a four-class middle school is to be built on the same site.
The high school itself will receive an extension to accommodate four classes per year when the G9 is implemented again in all grades. For this purpose, a pavilion will be installed as alternative accommodation. However, this is only the start of several construction projects on Peslmüllerstrasse, which will follow in further stages. The Theodolinden-Gymnasium in the Untergiesing-Harlaching district should also have more capacity. The planned extension building will accommodate the specialist classrooms for natural sciences; To achieve this, these special rooms in the current building are to be converted into twelve additional classrooms.
The city wants to build a completely new building complex on Prof.-Eichmann-Straße in Obermenzing. The Carl-Spitzweg-Realschule is to move there in order to relieve the pressure on the school center on Pfarrer-Grimm-Straße. Classrooms for five classes per year, a triple sports hall and outdoor sports facilities are planned. The third major focus is on elementary and middle schools. Among other things, a new four-class primary school with a triple sports hall and a house for children with four groups will be built in Eggarten. A new pavilion will be built at the Knappertsbuschstraße/Ruth-Drexel-Straße (Bogenhausen) and Schererplatz (Pasing) locations to create space for more classrooms and a cafeteria.
Despite all efforts, the coalition is aware that not all of teachers’ and parents’ wishes can be met this time either. “We are facing enormous organizational and financial challenges,” said Green Party leader Weisenburger. More help from the Free State would be urgently needed. His city council colleague Schönfeld-Knor also sees it this way: The city is already having to stretch and postpone more projects than it would like.