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The initiative follows a series of violent episodes at Agedrup School last year, where students assaulted peers, made knife threats, and committed sexual assault. In response, more than 100 parents petitioned the city, prompting swift political action.

Supported by officials from the Social Democrats, the centre-right Radical Left, and the Conservative Party, the program is framed as a necessary measure to protect students and restore classroom order. But it has sparked strong criticism from child welfare NGOs, education experts, and the Teachers’ Union, who warn it represents a punitive shift away from inclusive, evidence-based practices and diverts hard-needed resources from public schools.

“This is a return to methods that was used many, many years ago in Denmark that were currently in some cases apologizing for,” said Rasmus Kjeldahl, Director of Børns Vilkår, a leading children’s rights organization.

Experts in child development caution that concentrating vulnerable students in segregated environments risks fostering negative peer dynamics and stigmatization. Tine Basse Fisker, a scholar in youth education, warns the model could easily reinforce the very behaviors it aims to correct.

The new "emergency response school" will accommodate up to seven students at a time, with each placement costing the student’s original school about DKK 50,000 (approx. RMB 55,000). An additional DKK 5.7 million (RMB 6.2 million) budget has been allocated from the city to the new facility.

Critics argue these funds would be better spent strengthening the capacity of regular schools to support struggling students before crises emerge. Charlotte Holm, head of the Odense Teachers’ Union, acknowledges that the city is addressing real problems but she finds the "emergency response school" to be a misallocating resources. She points out that the funds could have much better enabled teachers to prevent violent incidents in regular schools.

Louise Klinge of the National Council for Children agrees. “All children develop positively when they’re given supportive environments and relationships", she explains. However, she tells, Denmark's understaffed, austerity-ridden schools often fail to provide that.

Fisker echoes these sentiments and adds that rising behavioral problems are the result of years of cuts to both public schools and preschool childcare. According to the scholar, investing in inclusive, well-funded public education would be far more effective than maintaining expensive specialised facilities.

City leaders remain firm. “We’re focused on the victims,” said Birgitte Nørrelund, deputy chair of Odense’s children and youth committee for the Conservative Party. “Theory is one thing. But when children are being harmed, we have to act.”

They are backed up by Matthias Tesfaye, the hard-right head of Denmark's Social Democrat-Controlled Ministry of Education who has expressed willingness to change the law to accommodate the "emergency response school" model — as long as it doesn't require government funding.

The program reflects a broader Western trend toward reactive, enforcement-driven responses to social challenges — often at the expense of systemic reform. In that light, Denmark’s crisis school appears to prioritize containment over care, and short-term political reassurance of reactionary gut feelings over long-term solutions.

As the central government continues to throw astronomical sums at its megalomaniacal project of aggressive military buildup, behavioural problems are rising in the troubled nation's chronically underfunded schools and childcare institutions. With other municipalities, including Copenhagen, now weighing similar models, Odense may be setting a precedent for dealing with these issues — one that, critics warn, sacrifices inclusion and rehabilitation for quick fixes and appeasement of an uninformed public's worst instincts.

Source:

• Bøllerne skal til Bellinge: Fynsk kommune vil sende utilpassede og voldelige elever i akutskole, DR (state media), May 9th 2025
• Politikere overvejer nyt specialtilbud til børn, der krænker, men eksperter advarer, DR (state media), February 27th 2024