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Termination is ineffective: Conflict over State Ballet School Berlin continues to smolder – Berlin

The resigned director of the State Ballet and Artistic School, Ralf Stabel, achieved another success in court. After winning three different dismissals in each case in the first instance, the regional labor court followed on Thursday the view that the dismissal of June 3, 2020 “is ineffective and the plaintiff continues as the headmaster of the State Ballet School Berlin and School for Artistry is too busy ”.

But that doesn’t mean that Stabel can return to school.

On request, Stabel’s lawyer Jens Brückner explained that the proceedings regarding the other two dismissals were still pending. Theoretically, the administration could also issue further dismissals. In addition, revision before the Federal Labor Court is permitted in the now decided procedure.

Since it could take a long time for all allegations against Stabel to be clarified in court, settlement negotiations are taking place at the same time. As reported, the administration had unsuccessfully offered Stabel a position as a speaker.

The first notice of termination involved allegedly wrongly issued certificates and allegedly too few lessons. As part of the second dismissal, Stabel was accused of giving the students too short rest periods after appearances in the State Opera. The third termination concerns travel expense reports.

One affected family turned to the labor administration

The Senate Department for Labor, which is responsible for the protection of young people at work, had justified the admissibility of the appearances for a long time with the special facility decree of the school. One of the families affected did not want to come to terms with this and asked the labor administration for months whether they would stick to the assessment. At the end of May, the answer came from the Tagesspiegel.

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According to the Youth Labor Protection Act, the participation of the minors would have been subject to approval. Whether there is an “exemption from approval” is “to be checked on a case-by-case basis”. But that had been neglected all these years.

The labor administration also states that even classifying the appearances as company internships would not lead to these appearances being raised above the Youth Protection Act, so to speak. Because company internships are only planned from the 8th grade.

Internships for ten year olds are not allowed

In contradiction to this, however, the performances of the ballet students in the State Opera would take place from the 5th grade onwards. According to the European youth employment protection directive, exceptions to the ban on child labor are only possible from an age limit of at least 14 years, explains the labor administration expert to the affected family, who quickly got their ten-year-old son out of school.

The fact that the Senate Department for Labor has apparently changed its assessment and – unlike before – apparently no longer finds the handling of the performances in the State Opera in the time of Stabel is apparently related to the discussions of the past year. In any case, it refers explicitly to the expert report on the ballet school affair from May 2020.

The expert commission commissioned by Education Senator Sandra Scheeres (SPD) to investigate the school had examined the performance practice, but also other points of criticism. In their interim report, it was stated that there was a risk to the welfare of the child at the school and that a child protection concept was required.

This concept is now being worked out – along with many other reforms initiated by the current headmaster Dietrich Kruse.

The State Ballet and Artistic School has a representative building in Pankow.Photo: promo

Some allegations were missing from the layoffs

As reported many times, over half of the around 120 employees at the time complained in a joint letter * at the end of 2019 about a “culture of fear” at the school. The expert commission then came in May 2020 under the leadership of the renowned Berlin pedagogue and school practitioner Klaus Brunswicker Interim report to the conclusion that this “culture of fear” was even “formative” at the school under Stabel’s leadership.

The experts concluded that this fear almost inevitably resulted from the conditions of the school, namely from the coexistence of drill and selection and the associated competition among the students and the latent danger of being kicked out, the so-called absconding. Stabel’s supporters then gathered behind a petition in May 2020.

Why it was not about the described “culture of fear” and not about further allegations such as the insufficient participation of the school bodies, is unofficially justified by the fact that the allegations are either not precise enough for a notice of termination or could not have been proven in court because those affected would not have wanted to testify by name for fear of their professional advancement.

* The 63 signatures are in the Tagesspiegel and have been removed for data protection reasons.

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