Ano Liosia: kindergarten director hospitalized in serious condition after attack; administrative probe launched, prosecutor notified

The director of the First Kindergarten of Ano Liosia is being treated in hospital in serious condition following Monday’s incident (September 28), the deputy director of Primary and Secondary Education for Attica, Dionysis Anastasopoulos, told ERT. The teacher says she was physically attacked by relatives of pupils, while an administrative inquiry (EDE) is underway and the Athens prosecutor, the juvenile prosecutor and police have been notified.

As ProtoThema reports, video filmed on the director’s own phone shows the moment of the confrontation: she is seen crouched on the ground trying to protect herself while a man in a white shirt hits her on the head. She can be heard shouting “help” and telling the parent: “Yes, you are hitting me”; the man demands an explanation for the way she had shouted at his child.

Anastasopoulos called the incident “an incident that wounds the school community” and said tolerance for violence is zero. According to his statement to ERT, the widely shared video is fragmentary: in it the director can be heard telling pupils “I’ll eat your hands if you break anything at school.”

This was no minor injury: the director’s own underage child was also present during the incident. She claims she was also attacked by other people at the scene and was taken to hospital with facial and head injuries.

According to the director’s account — presented as her version of events, not as a fact confirmed by the investigations — Roma families constantly pressure the school community for attendance certificates for the A21 allowance, despite poor attendance, while the director chases up absent children through the authorities. According to the same account, there is daily sabotage and insults against teachers; no teacher wants to work there, and the director is the only one who stayed for five years, with twenty years of experience.

Responsibility will be determined once the investigations are complete; the leadership vacuum will be covered starting tomorrow. The Education Ministry has provided a psychologist and a social worker, and the school will operate normally.