Bulgarian parents plan protests over school meeting schedules

Bulgarian parents are planning protests to demand that the Ministry of Education and Science establish centralized schedules for parent-teacher meetings. Every September, thousands of families face significant logistical challenges due to the mass overlap of meeting times across various nurseries, kindergartens, and schools.

Under the Law on Pre-school and School Education, educational institutions maintain broad autonomy to set their own internal schedules. Consequently, school directors independently issue orders for meeting dates and times, often clustering them in the narrow window immediately preceding the start of the school year. This lack of synchronization means that parents with children in different institutions—particularly in large cities like Sofia where traffic and distances are significant—are often physically unable to attend multiple mandatory meetings.

These initial meetings are critical for determining the rules for the new academic year, discussing educational aids, organizing funds for consumables, and establishing daily routines for younger children. Parents currently face the difficult choice of which meeting to attend, often missing vital information regarding their children's adaptation, curriculum, and organizational requirements.