The New Belgrade elementary school “20. Oktobar” began the new school year with major changes. One of them, perhaps the biggest, is that just before September 1, the school principal dismissed 13 teachers and brought in new staff to replace them. Parents of the students are protesting and emphasize that they are outraged because their children are now being taught by people they do not know, who came from Leposavić, Pale…
Most parents whose children attend school “20. Oktobar” in New Belgrade are outraged because principal Gordana Radojević left 13 teachers without jobs after they had worked at the institution for several years.
They claim that their employment contracts had expired, and that instead of extending them as she had done every year, she ended her cooperation with them and hired new staff in their places.
Parents told Nova.rs that the situation at the school is extremely tense, and that the administration does not seem to care about students who had become accustomed to the teachers who taught them.
“The situation is truly terrible. The atmosphere at the school has not been the same since the new principal, Gordana Radojević, arrived. She has big ideas for the school, and we agree with some of them, such as renovating the bathrooms, which are truly frightening. However, we absolutely do not like the fact that she dismissed the teachers,” one of the parents, whose name is known to the editorial staff, told us.
New Staff
He explains that many of the employees had worked at the school for a long time, and that it is unclear why cooperation with them was suddenly terminated.
“Most of the teachers had worked in those positions for more than five years. Their contracts were extended every year, and that was it. However, the principal has now decided to leave all of them without jobs and give their positions to new people whom nobody knows,” the parent adds.
Parents claim that some of the teachers who lost their jobs were deliberately forced out of the school.
However, we cannot confirm this because no one answers the telephone number listed on the school’s website.
“The principal does not like it when someone opposes her. She once transferred a teacher from teaching to the after-school program for no apparent reason,” the parent adds.
He also says that, because of an offensive graffiti message written by eighth-graders, the principal recommended that their homeroom teachers not attend the graduation celebration.
“The teachers went with their children, of course, because of which she punished them by taking away their homeroom positions. Those who remained loyal to her were left in the positions of homeroom teachers.”
The editorial staff of Nova.rs contacted an employee whose cooperation with the school was terminated just before September 1.
He says he had spent more than five years at the school and that his contract had been renewed every year. However, this year the cooperation was terminated for an unknown reason.
“The principal did not break the law, considering that all of us were employed on fixed-term contracts. But she did violate work ethics. She replaced us with unknown people from Leposavić; people came from Pale whom none of our colleagues, not only at our school but throughout Belgrade, know,” says the teacher, whose name is also known to our editorial staff.
According to him, as many as four mathematics teachers lost their jobs, while a journalist from Pink TV was brought in to replace one of them.
“A Pink TV news anchor cannot teach mathematics. Above all, that is not fair to the children who need to learn,” he says.
The parents, more precisely the Parents’ Council, submitted questions and in a way put pressure on the principal to explain why she dismissed the previous teachers and hired people unknown to them.
The principal publicly responded in a statement that the new teachers would introduce themselves at the first parents’ meeting, when they would present their biographies, and parents would be able to ask them anything they wanted.
In her statement, she claims that the new teachers have appropriate educational qualifications, that they studied for 16 years or more, and that an accredited state educational institution recognized them for their efforts.
Incidentally, this school, or rather its principal, was in the public spotlight last year when the school year began without a sufficient number of teachers.
Numerous teachers who had been employed on fixed-term contracts and had participated in teachers’ protests were dismissed, the “Zajednička akcija 70 i 70a” organization told Vreme at the time.
“That is why some classes went for weeks without lessons in subjects such as Serbian language, mathematics and physics,” they said at the time.
Threatened to Call the Police
The principal’s actions from several months ago were also remembered, when eighth-graders were celebrating the completion of elementary school.
As parents told us at the time, the eighth-graders were having fun, singing and socializing, which prompted the principal to call their parents and threaten to call the police.
According to what we were told, she demanded that recordings be removed from social media, specifically Instagram, and asked students and their parents to give statements answering the questions she had posed.
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Source: Nova ; Foto: Goran Srdanov/Nova
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