Kharkiv School Employee Fired After Letting MP In to Show Condition of Institution

“There is no stadium, the facade is crumbling, the steps are broken, and nails stick out of the Soviet-era parquet.”

People's Deputy Oleksandr Kunitsky said that after his visit to School No. 123 in Kharkiv, the janitor who let him inside was fired from the educational institution. He reported this on his Facebook page.

According to Kunitsky, a few weeks ago he held a reception attended by several Kharkiv residents. They turned out to be mothers of children studying at School No. 123. They said the school has a number of everyday problems: the stadium is in terrible condition, and the steps are dangerous for children. According to the deputy, this is a “typical school, no different from other schools in the country”.

A few hours after the meeting, the MP went to the school together with the parents who had approached him. 

The meeting took place on Saturday, and a female janitor was at the school entrance. Three people entered the building: a student's mother, Deputy Kunitsky and his assistant. The MP spent 20 minutes at the school: “We walked through the floors, and in principle, the condition became clear right away.”

Today, January 21, the same parents who had come to Kunitsky last time came to his reception, but this time they were accompanied by the cleaner who had earlier tried to “detain” them at the school entrance. They told the deputy that after his routine visit to the school, Principal Makarenko summoned this cleaner (technical staff member), whose work record lists the position of “cloakroom attendant”. The principal fired the woman and made her write a resignation letter of her own accord.

The People's Deputy does not understand why his visit to this school caused such resonance: “I really wanted and want to help this school. I contacted the Ministry, to Mr. Honcharuk's aides, so that they could find a way to allocate funds, the minimum needed to at least re-lay the parquet in this school.”

Kunitsky said he simply wanted to help this school and did not intend to portray the principal in a bad light, since he has not even met her.

As the People's Deputy said, during the reception with citizens he called the school principal and asked her to reinstate the cleaner/cloakroom attendant, who had worked at the school for 7 years, and also urged city authorities to intervene in the situation.

As follows from a video with comments from the fired woman, the school's principal called her and asked: “How could you let [the People's Deputy] in?” On the next working day, the school's bursar said the cleaner would have to write an explanatory note. To the question “So, you were fired because the People's Deputy visited the school?”, all the mothers and the cleaner herself answered “Yes.” Allegedly, this happened without the knowledge of Principal Valentina Nikolayevna Makarenko.

After establishing all the circumstances, Kunitsky decided to call the principal. He described in detail the reasons he had visited the school and his intentions to help. The dialogue that followed went as follows:

— As I understand it, Liubov Petrovna worked for you as a cloakroom attendant. She sincerely tried to find out who we were and what we wanted. We introduced ourselves, and she had no grounds to refuse us entry, because we came with good intentions. Perhaps you could reconsider your decision. The person worked at the school for 7 years, and I don't think she deserves such punishment. Neither I nor she wanted to do anything bad. We were not looking for any hidden pitfalls in your school in order to put pressure on you in any way <...>

 — I want to say thank you very much for being concerned about the school. This is very important to us, of course. But if the question is about Liubov Petrovna, she resigned of her own accord and for a completely different reason. I do not want to air our dirty laundry in public. She knows very well why she resigned and what violations she had in her work. This resignation letter was written in advance, before all this happened.

The principal went on to say that although they had not spoken very pleasantly with Liubov Petrovna, no one has any questions left. Another person is already being hired for her position. According to her, “they parted quite warmly.” The conversation ended with the principal saying she “currently has no way to take Liubov Petrovna back to work.”