Until recently, the villages of Szõd and Csörög have always constituted one municipality and students from Csörög went to school in Szõd. Now the Szõd city council has suggested that Romany school children from Csörög be relocated to schools in Vác, a town eight kilometers away. The Szõd city council points to the physical condition of one of the two school buildings as the reason. Still, there are non-Roma children who also currently go to school in the "unsafe" building, and no one has suggested they leave.

The headmaster's explanation to the Roma Press Center was that by sending the 90 Roma children from Csörög elsewhere, enough room would be created for others to go school in the 'good' building. The municipal government has already stated that it is not willing to have the building renovated at present due to a lack of finances.

The president of Csörög Roma ethnic self-government, Iván Rostás, believes that this whole situation is a cover-up for a more sinister plan. He believes that the town of Szõd intends to rid itself of Roma children.

Rostás says that the municipal government informed neither the Roma self-government nor the children's parents about their plan until they after spoke to the mayor of Vác. The head of the Educational and Cultural Department of the Vác municipal government, Ilona Elek Bódisné, said the mayor has not given any her instructions to prepare for an additional 90 children.

Bódisné asserted that the addition of 90 school children into the Vác school system would only be technically possible if both a professional committee and the community general assembly decide to accept them.

In response to these developments, the Csörög Roma Self-government has turned to the Roma Civil Rights Foundation (RPA) in Budapest for legal assistance. The RPA has initiated an official inquiry into the situation.
(Roma Press Center)