[Correction] May 27 Report on ‘Meal Corruption’ at Chungam High School, Transition to Board of Trustees System... School Normalization on Track

In the online article dated May 27, 2021, titled <‘School Meal Corruption’ at Chungam High School, Transition to a Board of Directors System... School Normalization on Track>, it was reported that "At Chungam High School, in 2015, the vice principal verbally abused students who did not pay for school meals, and the former principal and former administrative director were found to have embezzled 400 million KRW by entering into false meal service contracts."

However, upon fact-checking, it was revealed that the former principal and former administrative director were not involved in the embezzlement of school meal funds. On August 23, 2017, the Seoul Central District Court recognized that the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education had distributed a press release containing false information, causing media outlets to report falsely that the principal and administrative director of Chungam High School were involved in false claims for delivery service fees or embezzlement of food ingredients. The court ordered the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to pay 20 million KRW each in damages to the principal and administrative director. Furthermore, on March 23, 2018, the Seoul High Court dismissed the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s appeal against the above ruling. On June 28, 2018, the Supreme Court’s Third Division upheld the appellate court’s ruling in the damages lawsuit filed by Chungam Academy against the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (Superintendent Jo Hee-yeon), confirming that Superintendent Jo Hee-yeon must pay 20 million KRW each in damages to the principal and administrative director.

Accordingly, we hereby correct the aforementioned article.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.