The district administrator can also be wrong: Christoph Göbel (CSU) traveled to Unterhaching for the citizens’ meeting on Wednesday, assuming that everything is OK in the second largest municipality in his district, at least when it comes to school buildings. The Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium has stood here for almost 50 years, and Göbel said, referring to the secondary schools that have to be built around in many communities, “at least in Unterhaching there are no additional construction sites.” He triggered short laughter in the hall of the Kubiz and saw a mayor next to him out of the corner of his eye, who was scratching his nose in embarrassment. Wolfgang Panzer (SPD) has long known: The Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium is too small.
The school, which was built in 1972, is already tinkering around to fix ailing. At the moment the gym is on, the energetic and fire protection renovation is still going on. The Zweckverband, which includes the municipality of Unterhaching, the neighboring Taufkirchen and the district, costs 5.6 million euros. That won’t be the last construction site at this point.
Panzer’s reaction did not escape the district administrator’s attention, of course. “Do you want a second grammar school?” He asked the Unterhaching mayor promptly, but not without a mischievous grin, with which he charmingly made it clear that such wishes are probably not being fulfilled at the moment. But Unterhaching doesn’t have such big plans. However, the mayor made it clear in his report a little later in his report that it will not work in the future without an additional extension.
The first new G-9 class will graduate from high school in 2026. That means: in four years there will also be a 13th grade at the Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium. The Unterhachinger School was originally designed as a nine-year high school. But now seven fifth grades are schooled, this year 198 pupils switched to the Unterhachingen grammar school after primary school. In comparison: 38 children are currently attending the two fifth grades of the Unterhaching Middle School at the Sportpark. “There is even the question of whether we will be seven or even eight trains in the future,” reported Panzer. The topic must be dealt with urgently in the Zweckverband, because in 2025 a funding program of the Free State for school extensions in the course of the return to the nine-year high school will expire. Because due to the principle of connectivity, the country is obliged here to assume the costs of a G-9-related building requirement. Panzer announced that it would be discussed at the next meeting of the association.
It is not the first time that the school building, which has become known nationwide through the film “Fack ju Göhte”, has to be expanded. It was actually too small when it opened in the 1970s. In the 1975 annual report, the then mayor of Unterhachingen and former chairman of the association, Engelbert Kupka (CSU), feared that the school would be bursting at the seams. At that time, however, they did not want to think about a larger expansion of the grammar school. Because the fears were too great that a mammoth school operation that could hardly be managed would then emerge. But as can be read in the school history, the 1976/77 school year in Unterhaching started with nine fifth grades, each with 36 or 37 students. In the eighties there was a little relief with the construction of the Oberhaching grammar school, but this did not last long. With the arrival of many families, Unterhaching usually had more than a thousand pupils. This year, 82 full-time teachers are teaching a total of 1101 students here.
Most recently, the grammar school was expanded in 2006 to include the cafeteria building in the north and a wing with 28 classrooms and specialist rooms and an auditorium with 400 seats in the south. The open-air stage, called the “Chaostheater”, also dates from this time, as well as a labyrinth as an entrance. According to Panzer, there are not many options for expansion. His thoughts therefore go in the direction of the labyrinth in the southern outer area of the site, as he recently told the SZ.