Board of education chief outraged with parliamentary inspection "as a daughter of a Home Army soldier"

The inspections at the Lesser Poland Board of Education were partially a result of tvn24.pl publication from Feb.5, when we reported that superintendent Barbara Nowak had met with anti-vaxers in her office and criticised yet another closing of schools, suggesting that Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek was not in favour of that decision, despite official government narrative. Nowak is also believed to have pondered, in the context of the ongoing pandemic, whether "life and health are crucial".

Deputies from the Left party wanted to carry out the inspection on Friday, Feb.11, but Nowak told them that it was impossible, arguing she had to be in Warsaw in relation to a request for her dismissal, that had been filed by those very left-wing MPs.

The said request was filed the Left party deputies on Feb.7. In its rationale we read: "Barbara Nowak has not stopped her activities detrimental from the point of view of public health and safety. On Jan.31, 2022, the head of the Lesser Poland Board of Education held a meeting with representatives of organisations spreading anti-vaccination theories and undermining sanitary restrictions introduced by the government. The participants of the meeting did not wear masks and were squeezed in a tight space, which facilitates transmission of the coronavirus and sets out an wrong example for the public".

Did this meeting actually take place and what was its course? No one was able to answers these questions at the Ministry of Education and Science on Friday. As we managed to confirm, deputy minister Tomasz Rzymkowski - responsible for supervising regional boards of education - certainly did not meet with superintendent Nowak.

Eventually, at 9 a.m. on Monday, Feb.14, the Left party deputies were able to launch their inspection. At that moment, Barbara Nowak posted the following message on Twitter: "POLAND 33 years after the fall of PRL. Lesser Poland Education Superintendent (a daughter of an AK soldier) is being questioned for her work with children's parents, by heirs to communism in the line of ideology Daria Gosek-Popiołek, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, and family Maciej Gdula son of dep.min. Kiszczak, member of KC PZPR. Historian's nightmare.".

Less than an hour later, MP Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk infomed that the superintendent had left the deputies to hold her own "short" press conference. "This 'evacuation action' is unneccessary. We already know quite a lot" - she added in the tweet.

Civic Coalition deputies began their inspection at 11 a.m. It was originally scheduled for Feb.4, but the superintendent informed at the time she might have had COVID-19 and had to work remotely.

The deputies want check, among other things, if and how the parents complained on NGO activity in schools. Their inititial inquiry showed that Nowak was to receive only six such complaints in six years.

According to data collected by tvn24.pl, there were only 27 such compaints in 13 voivodeships over the last six years.

Ahead of Monday's inspection, Barbara Nowak prepared empty boxes for the deputies that were meant to symbolise 31,000 emails that, as she claims, had been sent to her office in recent years. She did not print them to avoid "unnecessary damage to the environment". "But please notice the enormity of all those emails that were sent," she told reporters.

At a press conference, Nowak spoke about the "Rainbow Friday" ititiative, which she said was "promoting homosexual and transsexual people and behaviour". In her opinion, the initiative was just one of the things that sparked thousands of parents to turn to her for help.

"Things were told on how we need equality," Nowak said. "It wasn't a question of equality, because the question of equality means we treat everyone the same way, and not single anyone out, or segregate our students. And when we said we wouldn't be allowing any special treatment of students, allegedly identifying themselves at that moment as transsexual, bisexual, and so on, we did say that we were against such segregation of young people," she added.

Nowak called it a "grand reaction of parents" and informed that, in 2019 alone, the board had received 11,862 emails pertaining to this issue, including 143 signed in full name and surname. She added that 2,911 emails were also sent in protest against "LGBTQ organisation entering schools".

Civic Platform MP Katarzyna Lubnauer posted a photo on Twitter showing the empty boxes prepared for the parliamentary inspection.