When 0th grade at Skærbæk District School has physical education today, it requires a nearly 25-minute walk each way. That ends up costing half of the teaching time.
Because contrary to the original plans to place the school next to the town's shared sports hall, it is now located 750 meters away.
A walk that can feel long when the legs are short.
But that will now change with a new injection of 20 million kroner for the only five-year-old school, which is already the most expensive publicly funded building in the municipality's history.
This means the school will now get a multi-purpose hall. This is stated in Tønder Municipality's budget agreement for 2027.
- It is clear that there is a need for it, because it is a challenge that there is a distance from the school to the hall, says Jørgen Popp Petersen, mayor of Tønder Municipality from the Schleswig Party.
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> I will not say that it is an extra bill, because we have not built
> something that has been scrapped.
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Already 20 million more expensive than expected
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The school construction originally had a budget of 90 million kroner, but the bill ended up at around 110 million kroner when it was completed in 2021.
The mayor of Tønder Municipality denies that the new investment is an expression of errors in the original construction.
- I will not say that it is an extra bill, because we have not built something that has been scrapped. We omitted to build a gymnasium or a multi-purpose hall and instead used the Skærbæk Center, but now we have the opportunity, he says.
Could the money for a multi-purpose hall not have been found in the original budget?
- At that time, there was also a desire to build a multi-purpose hall, but many compromises must be made, and I think now, if you look around the country, schools have been built that are significantly more expensive, says Jørgen Popp Petersen.
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A long struggle
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At the school, the news is therefore received with jubilation.
- We describe it as having gone from playing in the Superliga to having to play in the Champions League. Now they get much more physical education, says Klaus Fog, school principal at Skærbæk District School.
Klaus Fog is principal of Skærbæk District School. (Photo: © Bo Bechsgaard, DR)
The school's parents and support association are also celebrating the news.
For Birgit Bentin, who is a mother of two children in the early years and part of the school board, the walk has not only been noticeable in the amount of teaching, but also in the children's desire for physical education.
- It actually means a lot to them. It was one of the things that made them not want to go. When we pack the PE clothes in the morning, they say: 'No, we don't want to, because we have to walk all the way down there,' she says.
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> Other things have been prioritized.
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At the school's support association, there is a sigh of relief. Because the struggle for a new multi-purpose hall has been long.
- We are of course very happy that we are finally here. For several years, we have argued why this is important, says Hanne Vestergaard Rasmussen, chair of the support association.
The reason the multi-purpose hall has not come sooner, according to the municipality's mayor, is a question of prioritization.
- Other things have been prioritized. At the moment, we are building a new sports hall in Toftlund, because it actually could not survive any longer for safety and wear-and-tear reasons, says Jørgen Popp Petersen.
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