Former Sigtuna student on the culture of silence: "Like the students rule the school"

When Emma, ​​whose real name is something else, started as a day student in grade seven at Sigtunaskolan Humanistiska Läroverket (SSHL), she initially enjoyed herself well. But pretty soon she realized that money and status were of great importance among the students.

- How rich are your parents? Do you have a house abroad? That was important. They want to paint themselves like the school that the king and Olof Palme went to, says Emma.

Pupils who lived in the school's boarding school also received a higher status, she believes.

Towards the end of the seventh grade, Emma felt that the mood among the students changed. Emma particularly remembers a discussion where some questioned "how bad it really is to say the N-word".

- They started saying racist slurs around me and other non-white students, just to see the reaction. If you reacted too much, you were ostracized, she says.

According to Emma, ​​the biggest problems arose when someone "picked on" other students, especially students with a higher status. Something that contributed to the problem was that the school management could tell the reported student who told who, says Emma.

- If it comes out who had gone to the teachers, that person was harassed. All students, especially the boarding students, know that they still face no real consequences. It's almost like the students run the school and the staff are just there.

In 2024, Emma started her first year of high school at Sigtunaskolan. She says she told the teachers she saw another girl in the class freeze out. When it came out that she had told, instead she herself began to be isolated and harassed, says Emma.

- It was clearly noticed that students with a different sexual orientation, a different skin color and a different economic background were most offended.

She was not surprised when she read that three students had recently been detained at the school, suspected of, among other things, gross sexual harassment, gross illegal coercion and gross assault. However, she was surprised that it came out.

- I am very worried that the students who told about what they were exposed to will now be ostracized. I know how it feels and it was traumatizing. I don't want this to happen to any more students, says Emma.

In November 2024, Emma says, an event took place which she describes as particularly serious.

- A group of students chased me from the school to the bus station and shouted bitch and whore after me. It was dark outside and I was really scared. I had to hide in a friend's garden until they had left, she says.

DN has taken part in an email conversation between Emma's mother and the school from the November afternoon. "I'm on my way home now, so I'm going to look at the bus stop" and "I talked to her and will follow up with her tomorrow" writes one of the school's staff to Emma's mother during the evening.

Shortly after the incident, when Emma returned to school to write an exam, she was surrounded by students in the cafeteria. In an email from the school to Emma's mother, it appears that a staff member saw the students that day in the cafe, and that she did not feel that an intervention was needed, but that she "observed that Emma may very well have felt threatened or crowded in the situation".

After the events, Emma felt she could not go back to school without having a panic attack. She says that she stayed at home for almost two months. Emma's mother, who took time off to be home with her daughter, says she will never forget that fall.

- Our once happy, self-confident and gifted daughter was falling apart. Instead of sitting in a classroom, learning, laughing and planning her future, she sat at home and stared blankly at the walls, she says.

In an email conversation shortly after the incident, the school management wrote that they "initiated an equal treatment case and will conduct a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of this". The school's cases of a more serious nature should go to the Equal Treatment Group when violations do not stop.

The action plan that the group sent to Emma's mother just over a month later offered her to change classes and participate in a mediated conversation with one of the people she stated had harassed her, the email shows.

"While others in a similar situation might have demanded that the bullies be shut down, we contented ourselves with asking for an apology. But we were denied even this," Emma's mother wrote in a letter to the school. The school's response was that an apology is usually given "as part of a conversation between several parties".

The school also wrote that they conducted "regular conversations" with the students involved, but could not share details citing confidentiality. "Incidents of inappropriate behavior are dealt with, and the preventive work is ongoing, including through regular student talks," the school wrote in the email to the mother.

When the action plan was established, the family decided that the school was no longer a safe environment. They were afraid that the harassment would get even worse.

Emma changed high school in the middle of the school year and is doing well today, even if the memories from Sigtuna have left their mark.

- My daughter has moved on. I'm not sure I ever will. I will always regret sending her to SSHL, says the mother.

Before Emma changed schools, her mother sent an email to the school principal, Sofia Kinberg. There she explained what had happened to her daughter. The letter was never answered, according to the mother.

Sofia Kinberg does not answer DN's specific questions related to Emma's case, but writes in a comment that "it is extremely serious that there have been violations". She also writes that the school has extensive work to counteract violations.

"I want to repeat that we encourage everyone to tell us about their experiences," writes Kinberg.

She also writes that "the school has a long history" and that she understands that what is happening now evokes "memories and past experiences of various kinds".

"I can only say that it is unacceptable with violations regardless of when they occurred but do not comment on individual cases," she writes.