A sign announces: “Freedom needs courage”, underneath are Russian characters. During a visit to the BR, the founder of this self-proclaimed “learning oasis” asks for a discussion – but outside of the property. The microphone must be absent.
Self-declared “Russian territory”
Then she told Bayerischer Rundfunk: You are on Russian territory, you are a Russian foundation school, and around 50 children from different districts in Upper Bavaria have been taught here since the beginning of the school year. From their parents, but also from – literally – “educators who have left the system”. Including herbal and music educators, but also shamans, according to the director, who does not want her name to be mentioned here.
School without admission
Hygiene measures do not apply. The school is also not approved. The residents of the affected community find it worrying that an illegal school has been operating in their neighborhood since the beginning of the school year. An application for establishment and operation was never submitted to the authorities. That is why it has now been closed, as a spokeswoman for the responsible district office announced.
Another reason for the closure is that the school operation would not be approved even with an application, informs the responsible school supervisory authority. According to Wolfang Rupp, a spokesman for the government of Upper Bavaria, the school did not provide any information about the planned learning content.
On the other hand, documents had been handed over that did not necessarily suggest that the pedagogically correct approach was being carried out. According to Rupp, the ideas go in the direction of lateral thinkers and imperial citizens.
Was it a “school of unconventional thinkers”?
The founder of the school had previously rejected the accusation of being a “lateral thinker school” when asked by the BR. They want to continue operations in any case. However: If the lessons had not been stopped today, according to the government of Upper Bavaria, fines of up to 20,000 euros or even coercive measures would have been due.
Now it is to be examined whether further administrative offenses have been committed – and what also needs to be checked in detail, whether the parents sent their children to this school rightly, Rupp continues.
According to the information, an alleged foundation even wanted to conclude contracts with parents to teach their children on the farm for a fee. In one case, one of the parents then officially de-registered the child from a state school and enrolled it in the non-approved private school.
Apparently children of test refusers
According to BR research, the students are so-called “test refusers” children. These are children whose parents reject the mandatory corona tests in schools. According to the current legal situation, these children must therefore stay at home. The school must continue to teach them at a distance in an appropriate manner, but only to the extent that the school is able to do so. At the moment, however, hardly any schools offer proper distance learning. An affected elementary school in the Rosenheim district, from which some of the children of the now closed illegal school come, does not want to comment on the matter.
With material from dpa.