Minutes of Meeting with MLA Sri Sathish Reddy, Bommanahalli on 9-Aug, 9 AM

Brief Background: Vibgyor school blocked access to online classes for many kids on 5th August. Read the background tale at http://vicharpravah.com/my-daughters-education-am-i-bad-parent/ and further regular updates at http://vicharpravah.com/our-attempts-to-get-justice-on-school-fee/

4 of us (Shivu R H, Vijay Sharma, Ashish Bhargava and Self) met MLA Sri Sathish Reddy, Bommanahalli under whom Haralur, HSR, Electronic City and Bannerghatta Road (probably) branches of Vibgyor school comes. Meeting started at 10 am on 9-Aug-2020.

Hariprakash briefed MLA sir about the problem that kids have been de-enrolled despite Govt directive on Fee etc. He also told that parents are ready to pay un-hiked tuition fee but still school management is demanding hiked fee in this pandemic and harassing parents. In fact, kids have been already de-enrolled.

MLA sir called Area BEO (Block Education Officer) and got recent updates from him. He had this discussion on speaker phone and what we learnt is that BEO did want to take action but Vibgyor school management took a stay on Govt directive hence it could not be enforced. We asked when there is a stay then how can parents be harassed. If stay means that Govt cannot take any coercive action on schools then with same logic, Vibgyor school management cannot take any coercive action against parents/kids. MLA sir took this point and asked us phone number of Principal which none of us had.

MLA sir tried few calls to get someone senior at Vibgyor school (e.g. Principal, Mr. Nagabhushana) to speak to and got hold of Mr. Muneer AK (AGM – Operations). He asked him to have common meeting with parents, himself on Monday, 10-Aug at 9.30 AM for which he denied since he was in Kerala. Tentatively, meeting is fixed on Thursday, 13-Aug, 9.30 AM. Venue is most probably MLA Office at BDA Complex, HSR Layout. Hari will coordinate between parents and MLA office to ensure that this meeting happens.

MLA Sir also stressed that parents should also file court case and we informed that some of us have done that also but getting court hearing dates is a problem. He suggested to write to Chief Justice, Karnataka to expedite it because 1000s of kids future is at stake. He also suggested to run a signature drive and share with authorities including Chief Justice of Karnataka, if school management does not pay any heed.

We also informed that parents might resort to Dharana if genuine demands are not met. For which, he mentioned that let’s wait for the meeting with Mr. Muneer and decide next course of action. 

Overall, MLA sir spent about an hour and we all got positive vibes that there would be way out of this soon.