From BZ/dpa
Berlin’s education senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU) does not consider security for all schools to be sensible.
“We all wish — and I’m saying this now as an educator and a mother of four — that when our kids aren’t with us, they were 100 percent safe,” she said. “But none of us want schoolyards with guards at every entrance, we want a protected schoolyard.”
School must be a safe space. “The entire pedagogical staff has regular further training on how to supervise and how a schoolyard must be secured,” she told the “Berliner Zeitung”. Nevertheless, a residual risk remains.
Whether access to schools should be secured with a door code and intercom system, for example, can be checked on a case-by-case basis. “Every school can register a need, for example because it has more people from outside the school in the schoolyard. Then you can also take such a measure,” said Günther-Wünsch. “I would support that if the school wants it and it contributes to the individual’s need for security. I just don’t like blanket solutions.”
There is a security guard at the Walter Gropius School in Neukölln, where she herself worked as a teacher. “There were conflicts within the school community that we wanted to settle. Nobody should come in from outside without authorization,” said the CDU politician. In all of Berlin, however, this is not often the case. “It’s up to the districts as school authorities, they also pay for it. We’re collating the numbers right now.”
Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU), Berlin Senator for Education, Youth and Family Photo: dpa
On Wednesday last week, a 38-year-old man attacked and stabbed two girls aged seven and eight in a schoolyard in Berlin-Neukölln. One of the children was fatally injured and the other seriously injured.