The teacher, who had taken the whole class hostage, returned to the school

The Court of Appeal reinstated a teacher who closed herself in a classroom with minor children a year and a half ago because she did not want to take a vocational exam. The court also ordered her to be paid 100,000 UAH.

“I am not going to be certified. Get out of the office!” The deputy director of Shostka Secondary School №6 recorded the teacher’s behavior during the incident. The teacher explained that she was the master of the lesson and threatened to call the ministry.

“We start telling them: get out. The children get up, and the teacher says: sit down! The children were intimidated, they didn’t understand how to act” says Oksana Platsynda. 

The teacher did not let the 11-year-old children out until the police arrived. Panic broke out among fifth-graders, and seven of them had to seek for a medical aid, according to the TSN story.

The teacher closed herself  with the children before the open lesson, which had to be attended by the attestation commission. “I called the police because the teacher started shouting” said Nadiya Andrushchenko, a former school principal. The policemen  managed to enter the classroom when the teacher let one student into the toilet.

“Some of them were sitting in such a frightened state, others were crying and trying to hide themselves, that’s why they pulled on the sweaters,” the former director says.

In the video one can hear Sofia Belichenko, the first girl, who left the classroom, crying. “During the break she drove us to the classroom, then she shut us down”, the child says. She was brought home in shock by the police.

“She is afraid of a closed space, so she has started crying immediately” the girl’s grandmother Nadiya Belichenko stated.

When the children were released from the classroom, several of them needed medical aid.

“I start to measure the pressure – it goes beyond the scale. 130 to 90 – well, that’s too much for fifth-graders. One boy felt sick and ran to the toilet. Another girl was so frightened that her hands were shaking when I passed her a cup. I have never seen children being so scared” the nurse Yulia Zolotonosha admitted. 

After the shock faced, some pupils refused to attend the school. 

Eventually, the management fired the 70-year-old teacher. However, she is about to return now  and according to the court’s decision she is to receive more than 100,000 UAH, the  NTN pointed out. 

Olena Parfionova, Co-Chairman of SOS Parents

The worried parents of those children wrote me. They are afraid to let the children attend lessons. We have a question: why did it leave out of the police sight? The whole class of minors was taken hostage. Why didn’t they open a criminal proceeding? This clearly demonstrates the situation with the police and justice in our country clearly . Let’s recollect the case when the nurse was fired from the kindergarten, right after she had posted her own photo in a swimsuit. In our situation the teacher who violated the law and caused the physical and psychical consequences is back in the studying process. How can we speak about supremacy of the statute law in Ukraine?  Who is in charge of our children defence?

I would like to note that that new school principal warns those children parents against informing the public about reinstatement of this teacher. 

Natalia Tolub