At an elementary school in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, a 5th-grade homeroom teacher was changed an astonishing six times in the span of a single year.
It was reportedly because some parents filed complaints with the school, claiming that "the homeroom teacher glared at the child" or "neglected the child."
Whenever a new homeroom teacher was assigned, another wave of complaints followed. One parent reportedly made 113 complaint phone calls, while another made 61.
In the end, the students in this class had to go through multiple homeroom teachers over the course of a single year.
This is not an isolated case.
It has been found that similar cases of homeroom teachers being replaced mid-semester have surged nationwide in recent years.
According to data submitted by the Ministry of Education to People Power Party lawmaker Jung Sung-kook, the number of mid-semester homeroom teacher replacements at public elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide rose from 415 cases over the three-year period from 2020 to 2022 to 575 cases from 2023 to last year.
Comparing the two three-year periods, this is a 38.6% increase.
Replacements of homeroom teachers due to parents' demands also increased by 32.1%, from 156 cases to 206 cases.
Conversely, cases where teachers directly requested to step down as homeroom teachers increased by an even larger margin.
During the same period, such cases rose by 42.5%, from 259 cases to 369 cases.
Out of the 575 homeroom teacher replacements that occurred over the past three years, cases where teachers voluntarily requested a replacement accounted for a staggering 64.2%.
In fact, at an elementary school in southern Gyeonggi Province last year, a homeroom teacher stepped down after the first semester, suffering from repeated complaints by parents. At the time, a parent reportedly kept filing complaints, asking, "Why do you only discriminate against my child?" and "Why do you show favoritism toward other children?"
The teacher explained that they had never discriminated against any student, but the complaints persisted, ultimately leading the teacher to request a change of homeroom assignment.
When homeroom teachers change frequently, students have to rebuild trust with new teachers, and teachers also have to figure out students' characteristics and classroom conditions from scratch.
The Supreme Court also ruled in 2023 that repeated demands for homeroom teacher replacements without justifiable reasons can constitute undue interference with educational activities.
The court stated that the replacement of homeroom teachers should only be allowed supplementarily in exceptional situations where it is difficult for a teacher to properly perform their duties.
(Reported by Kim Minjeong | Video by Jang Yu-jin | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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