Parents clash over Danwon classrooms

Parents of Danwon High School students distribute leaflets at a culture center in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, demanding the removal of the belongings of students who died in the 2014 Sewol ferry accident from 10 classrooms, so that new students can use them, Tuesday, when the school planned to hold an orientation session for freshman students. The session was cancelled. / Yonhap

Dispute rises over memorial space at school for Sewol ferry victims

By Kim Se-jeong

Tensions are high at Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, where the majority of the 2014 Sewol ferry victims were students, over whether to keep memorial spaces for the victims.

Ten classrooms where the victims were students, have been kept with their belongings as a way to commemorate them. But parents of the new students at the school want the belongings moved to other memorial venues to make space for the new students in those classrooms. The school needs eight more classrooms to accommodate all the new students if it does not remove the memorial classrooms.

On Tuesday, about 30 parents blocked the entrance of a culture center in Ansan where the school was to hold an orientation session for 301 new students, saying the school and regional education office should take action to solve the situation.

The parents said the rooms, called “Classrooms of Remembrance,” were afflicting other students in a bad way who attend the school.

“Seeing the classrooms, other students, including the survivors, feel depressed and guilty. They cannot have a normal school life,” one parent said.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education proposed the idea of turning the classrooms into memorial spaces in November 2014, in an attempt to console the victims’ families. The original plan was to keep them that way until February this year, when the victims would have graduated had they lived. Then, the school could receive new students in those classrooms.

But the idea was not accepted by the victims’ parents, who argued there’s no better place than the school for memorial space.

“The fault is on the education chief, because he made an unrealistic promise to the victims’ families,” another parent said. “If nothing improves soon, we will sue the school and the education office.”

The orientation for the new students was finally cancelled, and the new students had to return home.

On Wednesday, parents said they would file a complaint against Gyeonggi education chief Lee Jae-jeong for negligence.

“As chief educator, Lee is obliged to keep students learning and studying. But he chose to rob the students of the space by keeping the classrooms as memorials,” one of the parents said. “We will encourage the prosecution to look into the case.”

In response, Lee said that the classrooms are places where students learn and study, not spaces for memorials, adding that he is trying his best to solve the problem.

The education office recently approached the victims’ families with the idea of creating a new memorial hall, but the families turned down the offer because it was not on the campus. New students will start school on March 2.

On April 16, 2014, the ferry Sewol carrying 325 students and teachers from Danwon High School capsized in the sea off Jindo on the southeastern coast. They were heading to Jeju Island for a school trip, and 262 of them lost their lives. The vessel is still under water, and salvage efforts are still going on.