Jova Gymnasium Students Return, Allege Plenum Was Bugged

Can a return to school be news for something other than the building? The Jova Gymnasium in Novi Sad showed this morning that it can. Students walked into their main building, but at the entrance they also read out a statement claiming their plenum was bugged.

What happened outside the school this morning?

Students of the Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj Gymnasium entered their main building on Monday, October 12, 2026. That is earlier than the October 15 deadline the mayor had mentioned. In our previous article on this story, we reported that the students were returning on Monday.

Before classes began, the school choir sang the school anthem. Then a parent standing at the entrance read out the students’ statement.

A banner on the fence read “We are returning to Jova, but without…”, and next to it hung a list of 52 teachers who have lost their jobs at the school in the meantime. The students hold principal Radivoje P. Stojkovic responsible for that.

What do the students claim about the plenum?

According to the statement, the plenum they held over the weekend was bugged. The students say that sentences identical to those spoken at the plenum appeared in some media outlets, which they call “so-called” media. They conclude from this that they were recorded.

“The information was not spread from our side, nor was it passed on to any public groups or media. We were bugged,” the students said in the statement.

The statement ends with a line addressed to those who, in the students’ view, planted the listening equipment: “Jova is ours, you will answer for it.” The students also distanced themselves from any political campaign and said they will not allow their return to school to be portrayed that way.

Parent Mark Danijels told N1 that the plenum was held in a community hall run by the opposition. He also says the parents’ Viber groups did not contain details that later turned up in the tabloids:

“I am in some of those parents’ Viber groups, and I can assure you, we did not know the details that the tabloids knew. What the students sent us was a very sparse announcement (…) Those details weren’t there at all. How the action would be called, I didn’t know that. Only the children who were at that plenum knew.”

Parents said last night that the publication of a transcript of the graduating students’ conversation proves the meeting was bugged. They asked the outgoing caretaker Government of Serbia and Serbia’s acting president Ana Brnabic to determine who approved the recording and who carried it out. They also demand that criminal responsibility be established for everyone involved.

What happened on Saturday, before the return?

On Saturday, October 10, principal Stojkovic, Novi Sad mayor Zarko Micin and City Assembly speaker Dina Vucinic were at the school. Invited were first and second year students of the gymnasium and seventh and eighth graders of the primary school attached to it, who had not seen the building until then.

Parents claim the children were taken to the ceremonial hall and photographed without their parents’ written consent, and that the photos were then posted on social media. They accuse the mayor and the principal of using minors to promote the Serbian Progressive Party.

“The parents of Jova Gymnasium students will launch all available legal proceedings against Radivoje P. Stojkovic and Zarko Micin for the abuse of minor children for political campaign purposes, without the written consent of their parents,” the parents said in a statement.

Micin and Stojkovic announced the same day that the necessary work on the dome was finished and that the conditions for safe use of the building had been met. According to Micin, the city Inspection Affairs Department lifted the ban on using the ceremonial hall, and a court expert assessment found that the dome and the completed work do not endanger the safety of the building. Micin described the earlier return as the result of cooperation between the city and provincial authorities and the school management.

How long was the school out of its building?

Inspectors ordered the building closed over the safety of the main dome above the ceremonial hall. Classes were held in three other schools in the meantime. Parents objected at the time and repeated several times that there were no safety risks to holding classes.

Sources differ on the duration. RTS says in its headline that “more than a year” has passed, while the address of the same article mentions two years. The only certain fact is that the period was longer than a year.

What does parent Mark Danijels tell N1?

Danijels told N1 that parents are not dropping their demand for the principal’s dismissal. According to him, a court ruled in favor of the dismissed teachers and found that they were fired unlawfully, but the principal does not act on the rulings. He calls the return to the building “bittersweet,” because some teachers were left standing outside the school this morning.

According to N1, principal Stojkovic expressed displeasure about the events outside the school in a short conversation with their reporter and said it was an unregistered gathering. Danijels sees this as “two opposing realities.” He regards the opening of the school two weeks before snap parliamentary elections as part of the election campaign.

“He is the one who has been accusing students and teachers of engaging in politics at school all along, but I think it was the principal, Radivoje Stojkovic, who brought politics into the school,” Danijels said.

What parents are demanding at this point, based on what has been said publicly:

• the dismissal of principal Radivoje P. Stojkovic
• the return of the dismissed teachers to work
• an investigation into who recorded the students’ plenum
• legal proceedings over the photographing of minors in the ceremonial hall