The Klenze School never rests during the summer holidays either. In July, the parents were informed that one of the third classes was to be canceled in the new school year. Protests are growing against the decision of the state school board and the Ministry of Education. In the meantime, the majority of parents are demanding a correction, which includes both the bound all-day train with 21 pupils and three classes for 60 half-day pupils.
The forecast number of 84 children had just missed the limit for forming four classes. At first it was said that the all-day class would be cancelled. But this would have presented working parents with massive problems. On the eve of the last day of school – the prognosis had dropped to 81 students – the school administration changed its mind. The all-day class will remain, but there will only be two instead of three half-day classes. With 30 children each, these would exceed the upper limit of 28 pupils.
For the school authorities, this is a grab into the “toolbox”. But what the parents write to the authorities in numerous individual and collective letters does not sound like a successful craft: “We see an unbridgeable injustice in the ratio of 21 to 30. This balancing act is too big,” writes a class parent representative, also on behalf of others : “If there is a tool in this toolbox for exceeding the 28 limit, then please find the tool that enables the preservation of the four grades, including all-day”.
A father criticized the “obscure and apparently unlawful conduct” of the authorities and went on to write: “It’s hard not to see yourself here as a pawn sacrifice made in favor of the all-day school agenda, just so that you don’t get bad campaign PR about the entitled to an all-day offer from 2026”. Despite all the solidarity with all-day families, the other parents fear unequal educational opportunities at their school.
“Perhaps many parents are not aware”
The Ministry of Education has reacted and stated that “in special cases, with the consent of the school family”, the maximum value can be exceeded by up to two students. According to international studies, “the number of students per class is neither a guarantee nor a measure of successful teaching”. However, there can be no question of an “agreement with the school family”. More than half of the parents in the half-day classes joined the protest – although many families could not be reached at the beginning of the holidays.
The state education authority, in turn, explains that full and half-day trains cannot be counted separately in class formation. It is always the number of all students in a year that counts. Thus, what “perhaps many parents are not aware of”, there always remains a “residual risk” that an all-day train does not exist for four years. When changing from the first to the second and from the third to the fourth grade, the class groups would be retained even if the number of students decreased. But when changing from grade two to grade three, “the state school board is required to check carefully”.
Now the parents can only hope: If the number of students breaks the 85 mark after all, through immigration or through guest school applications from parents outside the district who want to have their children looked after here all day, there could also be a fourth, third class in the short term, so the official information.