Tensions remained high for a second consecutive day at a school in Ano Liosia, a western suburb of Athens, after a video was posted online showing the inappropriate and aggressive behavior of the kindergarten head teacher toward young students, followed by her assault by the parents of a 4-year-old girl who the teacher had berated. The teacher remains hospitalized with head injuries and a fractured nose.
Footage released online shows the moment the teacher was attacked by the parents.
The atmosphere in the area has been described as explosive, with relatives of the child even threatening to destroy the school if the teacher returns. The uncle of 4-year-old Maria, the girl who received several pushes from the teacher, said the if the teacher returns to the school, he will set it on fire.
The Greek Education Ministry has already ordered an administrative inquiry into the incident.
Numerous videos circulating online reportedly captured what has been described as the teacher’s inappropriate conduct toward the children. According to people close to the teacher, she is a highly experienced educator with 20 years of experience and the only teacher who has managed to remain at the particular school for five years. They also claim that the school has faced repeated problems involving members of the local Roma community.
What Teachers and Residents Are Alleging
According to local residents, what pushed the teacher to her limits was the fact that many of the children attend the school so that their parents can obtain a certificate needed to receive certain benefits. Many of the children do not attend classes regularly. The teacher then tries to locate them because, according to people close to her, she is an educator who genuinely cares about the children. When she calls their parents, however, she reportedly finds that her calls have been blocked.
Parents of students spoke to MEGA and described the tense moments. “Something was dirtied, something was broken. I don’t know exactly what happened, and the teacher, specifically the principal, started screaming. She was shouting, ‘I’ll smash your heads, I’ll cut off your hands,’” one parent told MEGA.
Another parent described the situation as particularly intense, saying that the principal was shouting both at the children and at passersby who intervened.
The Directorate of Primary Education and the Education Ministry condemned the violent attack, stressing that taking the law into one’s own hands is not a solution and that the prescribed administrative procedures have already been initiated. The mother of the student was arrested after the teacher pressed charges, while the child’s father who also struck the teacher is being sought under Greece’s flagrante delicto procedure. Both are members of the Roma community.
The father spoke to Greek broadcaster MEGA, claiming that the educator had first hit his 4-year-old daughter, who subsequently had to be taken to a children’s hospital.
“I was so overwhelmed with anger at the teacher that I went inside and, yes, I hit her. I slapped her twice. The police took my 4-year-old daughter to the police station without her mother being present. They took her statement without anyone else being there,” he said.
