Why is the Sippelberg director returning while other staff remain suspended?

Wallonie-Bruxelles Enseignement will return the director of the Athénée royal du Sippelberg in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean to his post at the start of the 2026-27 school year, while additional people have been suspended, La Dernière Heure reported on 12 August. The decision changes who may work at the school but does not settle the underlying allegations, and WBE has not publicly identified the newly suspended people or explained the evidence behind each personnel decision.

That distinction matters to pupils, parents and staff preparing for the French-speaking school return in Brussels. Preventive suspension is intended to protect an inquiry and the school community; it is not, by itself, a disciplinary finding or proof of wrongdoing. The director’s return should therefore not automatically be read as either a complete exoneration or a judgment on the pupils and families who raised concerns.

The case began publicly in February, when several pupils, including girls, were reported to have complained about a teacher over alleged sexual harassment, threats and extortion. BX1 and BRUZZ subsequently reported that the teacher, the director and a deputy director had been removed preventively while WBE, the organising authority for the French-speaking state school, investigated. The allegations remain allegations, and no publicly available ruling establishes criminal responsibility.

WBE’s position has consistently emphasised procedure. Its communications representative Cécile Marquette told BX1 in March that the network was conducting an inquiry examining evidence both for and against the people concerned, in the interests of the school and its pupils. That institutional framing is important: the August reshuffle appears to be another interim risk-management decision rather than the published conclusion of a disciplinary process.

Families who complained bring a different priority. Their perspective, relayed to the Parliament of the French Community, is that the alleged conduct was serious enough to require immediate protection and credible follow-through. Jacqueline Galant, the minister responsible for oversight of WBE, told parliament on 18 March that parents and children had contacted her about what she called relatively serious facts. She said WBE acted quickly, while the justice system was handling the complaints.

MR parliamentarian Clémentine Barzin had asked Galant how the authorities would guarantee a safe and calm environment. Galant answered that her priority, shared with Education Minister Valérie Glatigny, was a secure setting for pupils and personnel, but she kept her response brief because the inquiry was confidential. Neither that parliamentary exchange nor the later reporting disclosed a timetable for completing the administrative investigation.

The episode also exposes the difficult balance facing a public-school authority. Moving too slowly can leave pupils feeling unheard and potentially exposed; announcing personnel measures without completed findings can damage reputations and weaken due-process rights. Le Soir’s May reporting described a wider internal crisis involving rival staff groups and pupils drawn into adult conflicts, suggesting that restoring trust may require more than deciding who occupies each management post.

This is fundamentally a Brussels education story, not an EU institutional one. Molenbeek lies within the Brussels-Capital Region, but the relevant chain of authority runs through the French Community and WBE rather than the European Commission or another EU body. For international residents, that division illustrates Belgium’s layered system: regional geography and the authority responsible for a school are not necessarily the same thing.

The immediate test will come when pupils and staff return. WBE will need to show that reporting channels, supervision and support are credible while respecting confidentiality and the presumption of innocence. The central unanswered questions are who has now been suspended, whether the teacher originally accused remains away, what conclusions the administrative inquiry has reached, and whether prosecutors have advanced any complaint. Until those points are clarified, the director’s return is a significant operational decision, not the end of the Sippelberg affair.