"An unprovoked attack". Poland's children's ombudsman wants to inspect LGBTQI+-friendly schools

Mikołaj Pawlak announced the inspections on May 10 at the "Church-Education-Upbringing" conference organized by the "Europa Christi" movement at the Monastery in Wigry.

"Today, one newspaper - which is becoming German - published a ranking of schools friendly to the pseudo-rainbow," children's ombudsman said. "I assure the minister, and you ladies and gentlemen, I will begin already in May by inspecting first 10-20 (schools - edit.)" - he added, addressing the conference guests, including Poland's Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek.

He also explained he wanted check "how does it look like, how this friendliness is manifested". "Obviously, Warsaw schools have the primacy," Pawlak said.

This year's LGBTQ+-Friendly School Ranking in Poland was published on May 10. In this initiative, students rate schools in terms of safety for everyone, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. First editions of the ranking pertained to Warsaw schools only, but the last three editions covered the whole of Poland.

According to the latest ranking, 4 out of 10 most LGBTQ+-friendly schools are in Warsaw, but the first place was granted to "Collegium Gedanense", a high school in Gdańsk.

The crucial values and principles the ranking creators and young students pay attention to include openness, tolerance, care, agency, and empathy.

In an article published in "Gazeta Polska Codziennie" on May 22, Ombudsman for Children Mikołaj Pawlak said "the Office of the Ombudsman for Children inspects various schools - Catholic, music, primary and higher". "And so it does not pertain only to the facilities that appear in many weird rankings," he added.

Pawlak also said the inspections were usually meant to counteract crimes against children. "Unfortunately, it often turns out school directors or other institutions do not verify their employees in the pedophiles register. We must protect children from criminals and such verification is one of the key tools we should be using," he said. "It's also quite peculiar that various irregularities often happen in foundations and institutions that consider themselves free and most tolerant," Pawlak added.

Dominik Kuc of GrowSpace Foundation, a coordinator of the ranking, told TVN24 he and his associates "were shocked by this plan, because it's a stab in the back for schools which create a safe and open environment in their regions". "This is an unprovoked attack by the Ombudsman for Children, who should be supporting the educational role of schools, who should be striving to make young people feel safe," he argued.

"To us, this is an intimidation of students themselves, teachers, and first and foremost to directors who are making huge effort to create a safe and open environment for everyone," Kuc said.

He also stressed that students "choose the schools which are most friendly and they decide and vote". "It's their ranking, not a centrally ordered ranking of institutions. It depends only on young people and they are the ones who are being mostly intimidated, they are the ones who suffer the most because of it."

"Non-governmental organizations are obliged to check their employees in the sex offenders registers every time, in every project. Very often you won't receive a subsidy, if such a check has not been done. Such trumped-up arguments are unbecoming for the Ombudsman for Children, who should be supporting our work, openness and safety in schools, and maybe he should focus more on schools where there's violence, discrimination or exclusion," Dominik Kuc underscored.

"At 10 a.m. on Friday we will publish the Legal Shield for schools which might be selected for inspection. So far we don't have information that such inspections will actually take place, but the ombudsman announced it would happen already in May. We want pre-empt this action," Kuc announced.

"We will individually support every affected school. No one will be left behind," he added.