Bullying case at a primary school: Berlin's education senator admits mistakes

Berlin's Education Senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU) has admitted for the first time that she made false statements in the case of gay educator Oziel Inácio-Stech. The Brazilian-trained teacher , who works as a teaching assistant at the Carl Bolle Elementary School in Berlin -Moabit, supports children with special needs. He has been bullied for years by a colleague and subjected to homophobic insults and abuse by students.

In a nine-page letter obtained by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the lawyer for the bullied teacher informed the Education Senator that his client was being bullied and how. The letter was sent personally to the senator by registered mail with return receipt, and also by email in advance. At two public meetings in the Berlin Parliament in early June, Günther-Wünsch stated that she had not read the letter addressed to her personally.

She herself only read the letter in May, after the article appeared in the SZ newspaper. Günther-Wünsch had said that as a "public figure" she could not read every letter addressed to her. On Friday evening she told the dpa news agency that a "re-examination of the files that I requested" had shown that the letter was in her possession "personally." She regretted that she no longer remembered it. The fact that the Senator for Education now admits to having known about the lawyer's letter for six months is remarkable. However, the Senator remains silent about whether she actually read the letter or simply forwarded it unread to the controversial head of the Mitte school inspectorate.

A gay teacher is being bullied by elementary school students – and is going public with the situation. But this isn't an isolated case. Several colleagues at the Berlin school also report similar experiences. The school administration and the relevant authorities remain silent.

Although Inácio-Stech had documented all incidents and reported them to the school administration and the relevant school supervisory authority, he received no help, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported at the end of May . Instead, the school administration filed a complaint against the teacher, citing accusations that a colleague had made against the school administration.

The police investigation was quickly closed after questioning students. One student testified that the teacher had told her to raise allegations against the teacher during interrogations. The SZ has obtained the police file. Colleagues of Inácio-Stech also testified to his lawyer in statements that the colleague who had denounced him was using drugs, drinking alcohol during class, and had already "bullied" another colleague.

But instead of investigating these allegations, the school administration and the staff council asked the homosexual teacher not to discuss his homosexuality. In transcripts of these discussions, obtained by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the staff council stated that diversity could be difficult at the school due to the large number of children from "traditional backgrounds." Inácio-Stech may need to adapt his pedagogical concept to the "social conditions."

A teacher comes out as gay and is subsequently insulted, threatened, and bullied by his students for years. An isolated incident?

Bettina Jarasch, the Green Party's parliamentary group leader in the House of Representatives, sharply criticized the education senator, saying it was "poor style" for Günther-Wünsch to attempt to "cover up her failure in the case of the bullied teacher Oziel Inácio-Stech with two half-baked sentences to the media." The bare minimum would be a genuine apology to Inácio-Stech and an "appropriate handling of his complaint." The incident, she said, raised questions about Katharina Günther-Wünsch's conduct in office. It could not be the case that Berlin teachers with problems had to first turn to lawyers and the public "to get help from the responsible administration."

Oziel Inácio-Stech told the Süddeutsche Zeitung over the weekend that an apology from the senator wasn't enough for him. He demanded rehabilitation, which the head of the school inspectorate, Detlev Thietz, has yet to offer him. Moreover, he added, "the truth always comes out."

Meanwhile, more and more new details are emerging, which in turn raise new questions. According to information from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the teacher's lawyer also sent an email to the Senator for Education at the beginning of December, personally informing her of a "reprimand for the bias of your employee Thietz." The Senator has not yet responded to this letter either. According to the lawyer, he is biased because he actively participated in the systematic bullying of his client.

Sources within the Education Senate also revealed that the complaint against Inácio-Stech was filed at the instigation of deputy headmaster Christoph Kremers, in collaboration with the head of school supervision, Detlev Thietz, against the wishes of the headmistress. She is leaving the Carl Bolle School, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) previously reported. Several teachers had contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung in recent days and reported an intolerable climate at the school.