Author: Emilia Milcheva
Can a ninth-grader's couple become an election weapon? Yes, when an ambitious parent, a nationalist party and an elite school get involved, and all this is seasoned with a little salt and pepper like the Istanbul Convention. Only then is the scandal truly cooked.
In about ten days, the case has taken on threatening proportions. The parent Ani Kirilova has collected two binders with documents, including notarized Facebook postings of a teacher, which, according to her, she will decide when to use together with her lawyer. "Vazrazhdane" Party has sent three questions to the Minister of Education and claims that the National High School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NPMG) "Acad. Lyubomir Chakalov" has violated the ban on political activity. Students and teachers at the school are under enormous pressure, but remain united against the pressure and harassment. On social networks, there is a strong wave of support from former and current graduates of NPMG with the hashtag #Don'tTouchMyHighSchool, as well as from people outraged by the scandal. Posters with this text have been placed at the entrance to the school, which is in the top 10 high schools in Sofia, where admission is with the highest score.
The Ministry of Education and Science (MES) is completing its three-day inspection this week and will announce the results. When asked by DG at whose signal it was initiated, the press center explained that it was due to "the noise that arose in the public space".
The avalanche starts from a small snowball. Grade 9 student R. A. is repeating a grade because of doubles in geography, including four make-up exams - two before the start of the 2024/2025 school year and two more later. The "make-ups" were preceded by months of escalating tension between R. A.'s mother and the geography teacher, as well as with the boy's other teachers, along with the director of the NPMG, Ivaylo Ushagelov. Kirilova challenges teaching methods and bombards teachers with messages and comments at all times. She claims that poor grades are not the result of ignorance, but because of subjectivity.
The Istanbul Convention appears in this story after geography teacher Daniel Hristov gives R. A.'s class an independent assignment - a study of documents. It is optional - to increase grades, Deutsche Welle learned, and the condition is to analyze the convention against domestic violence and answer the question: "Is it a threat to the traditional family" with arguments.
Seven students completed the task, five of them were "against", and the grades are excellent, since they met the criteria: they read the document, have a position and defend it. R. A. does not write on the topic, although there is a couple to correct.
The Mother
When asked by Deutsche Welle whether she is against the Istanbul Convention, Ani Kirilova replied: "I think it is not right for children who are 15 years old to discuss a legal text that has not been approved by our Constitutional Court (CC)... It is not good to have propaganda while they are maturing, since the part of the brain responsible for critical thinking is not developed and relies entirely on the release of dopamine". She also explains the connection between dopamine and propaganda in a special 10-minute video on YouTube. Children get A's, therefore dopamine is released - "and in your subconscious you already accept the Istanbul Convention", she explains in an interview with DW.
She says that she has filed a report with the school's ethics committee about Daniel Hristov because of comments related to her website. Kirilova specializes in "clairvoyance, consultations, Lenormand, numerology, waxing, rituals and regression", and the site also advertises an online store (currently closed) for "coded wax candles", "coded spring water", "coded sea salt", etc.
Asked how she expects the case to end, Ani Kirilova replies that she is demanding a public apology from the school for "comments that undermine the prestige of her family". She also expects the Ministry of Education to review all 4 papers that her son submitted to the geography remedial sessions. "If they do not respond in a manner that satisfies me, I will share the entire documentation with names deleted", she tells DV. However, she confirms that the NPMG provided her and her son with the opportunity to review his answers, but she is unhappy that the time was limited and they were not given copies. She expects "serious checks". "The leadership could also be replaced, who knows, if the institutions do their job", says Kirilova.
When asked by DV how she explains that the "Vazrazhdane" party is involved in the scandal, Kirilova replies that she doesn't know how - she is not a member of any political party.
The party
"NPMG has a huge problem. With us". In his post, the MP from "Vazrazhdane" and candidate for a new term from the 4th MIR-Veliko Tarnovo, Angel Yanchev, claims that there is intolerance in the high school towards students "raised in traditional values".
When asked by Deutsche Welle whether Kirilova had visited him in his reception room to inform him about the case, Yanchev was laconic: "Contact the press center". On Facebook, however, the nationalists are eloquent - both Yanchev and the leader Kostadin Kostadinov, who even dedicated a special 13-minute video to the case. In it, the party leader also attacks the former prime minister and candidate for MP from PP-DB Nikolay Denkov, who defended NPMG and the freedom of teachers in the name of well-educated citizens.
For "Vazrazhdane" The case of R. A., however, is not only an election weapon, but also a way to prove that the so-called law on "gender propaganda" in schools, proposed by them and adopted by the 50th National Assembly, is not obscurantist and meaningless, but necessary. There were sharp reactions from the UN and the European Commission against the changes banning the "propaganda" of "non-traditional sexual orientation" and "gender identity other than biological" in schools.
"Vazrazhdane" also released a "black list" of teachers who opposed their law on social networks, with a call to hold them accountable. The list was based on a signature from educators and psychologists from all over the country, and the creator of this petition was a teacher from NPMG - Boris Iliev, who teaches Bulgarian language and literature. Over 20 of his colleagues from the high school also joined in. Although in August the prosecutor's office took action on the list of teachers' names distributed by "Vazrazhdane"-Varna, there are no results from the inspection.
The High School
In a public statement, the NPMG set out the chronology of the case, stating that "over the past two years, the teachers teaching Ms. Kirilova's child have been constantly attacked regarding teaching and assessment methods," and she herself refuses to accept the findings made during inspections by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education and Training. The high school explains that they decided to make their position known after they were obviously involved in an election campaign and the problem became politicized.
"We don't want this, we don't want politicians to interfere in a private educational case, which is within the competence of the MES institution", the high school's deputy director Denitsa Kozhuharova told DV. "Despite the harassment we are subjected to, we are trying to be dialogical. With our behavior, we are teaching the children a lesson - and I cannot afford to stoop down and be a sycophant", she states.
Solidarity with the call #Don'tTouchMyHighSchool was expressed by many former graduates of the high school, as well as student councils from 91 NEG "Prof. Konstantin Galabov", 31 SUCHEM "Ivan Vazov", First English Language High School, 32 SUICHE "St. Kliment Ohridski" and many others. NPMG plans to file a collective civil lawsuit for damaging the school's prestige after all means to resolve the problems are exhausted.
And Kirilova avoids answering the question of how she expects, after everything that has happened, her son to return as a student at NPMG again. And how would he feel among his classmates who wrote: "NPMG is a family and we all stand against lies, hypocrisy and slander".
According to malicious allegations, the participants in the clip were former NPMG graduates. Konstantin Dimitrov is a student of 12 "girl" grade and speaks at the prima vista in this video.