New Leadership at Ludwigshafen School Following Series of Incidents and Teacher Issues
Karolina-Burger-Realschule plus in Ludwigshafen gets new management after 18 of 56 teachers called in sick, with violence and threats becoming routine.
Karolina-Burger-Realschule plus in Ludwigshafen gets new management after 18 of 56 teachers called in sick, with violence and threats becoming routine.
New leadership will be installed at a school in Ludwigshafen, which German media have labeled one of the most challenging in the state over the past months. The decision to replace the current school management was made by the state Ministry of Education and the Trier-based Service and Supervision Directorate (ADD), and was announced one week after the new school year began.
In recent months, problems at this school have drawn significant public and political attention. Among the issues cited were violence in the hallways, firecracker explosions on the school playground, knife threats, abusive behavior toward teachers and students, as well as difficulties some students have with basic skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic. The severity of the situation was such that the Education Committee of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament had to discuss it.
In spring 2026, police officers patrolled the schoolyard. After police intervention, conditions improved significantly, according to education authorities. However, it became clear that the problems were not permanently resolved.
"Although the situation calmed considerably after the police intervention in spring 2026, intensive support has unfortunately not led to the necessary sustainable internal and staffing stabilization of the school," said a joint statement from the Ministry of Education and the ADD.
An additional problem is the large number of teachers who called in sick after the summer holidays. According to information from the German public broadcaster SWR, 15 teachers were reported sick on a single day at the start of the school year. During the second week of classes, a total of 17 teachers were on sick leave, which is roughly a third of the 54 teachers employed at the school.
Teleskop.hr cites slightly different figures: 18 out of 56 teachers called in sick at the start of the new school year. Sources thus disagree on the exact number of teachers on sick leave, but both media confirm it is a mass occurrence.
Teachers had previously warned of serious problems they face at work. They reported insults and physical incidents, and a feeling that they could no longer keep the situation under control. One teacher described the atmosphere to SWR last year, saying they "try to protect both themselves and the children, but that under current conditions, it's no longer possible."
Despite this, the outgoing principal had previously refused to generalize about the school's students. After the institution began to be labeled "the most dangerous school in Germany," he warned that hundreds of students were unfairly lumped together. According to him, only a small number of students are known to the police, while the rest are "perfectly fine."
Behind the image of violence lies a fact that is hard to ignore: in Realschulen plus schools in Ludwigshafen, including Karolina-Burger-Schule, about 90 percent of students have a migrant background. Principals emphasize that many students, even in fifth grade, do not have sufficient command of the German language, that integration into regular classes is difficult, and that communication with some parents is very limited.
Former Ludwigshafen mayor Jutta Steinruck publicly stated that mistakes have been made in German immigration policy over the past decades, and she particularly stressed the importance of learning the German language.
