skoleplass.no · skoleplass.no

A complaint (klage) against a school means having a decision or a situation reviewed — either by the school itself, by the municipality, or ultimately by the County Governor (Statsforvalteren) in your county. The most common complaints concern school placement, special-needs education, school environment or grades, and each has its own deadlines and case flow. As a general rule, the deadline is three weeks from when you received the decision, and the complaint should be sent to where the decision was made. This guide walks through the whole track — from the first written notice to the final ruling by the County Governor.

First: what can you complain about?

You can complain both about formal decisions (enkeltvedtak — binding decisions about rights and duties) and about circumstances that the school is not handling well enough.

Examples of formal decisions you can complain about:

A decision on school placement — which school the municipality has assigned your child.
A decision on special-needs education / individually adapted instruction.
A decision on school transport.
A denial of leave (permisjon).
A denial of delayed school start.
A decision to exempt a pupil from assessment.
A grade decision for term marks or exam grades.

Examples of circumstances you can report and ultimately complain about:

A school environment the child does not experience as safe.
That the school is not following up an individual education plan (IOP).
That the school is not meeting an activity plan under the school-environment provisions.
That the school route is particularly dangerous, and the municipality has not considered transport.

The key is to know what type of case you have, because the process and deadlines differ.

The four most common types of complaint

1. Complaint against a school-placement decision

If you believe the municipality has departed from the local-school principle without good reason — or assigned a school other than the one you consider to be the local school — you can complain. You can also complain when you move and the new local school is not assigned as expected. The right to a local school is covered in its own article.

2. Complaint about a special-needs-education decision

Both PPT's conclusion and the school's formal decision can be challenged. You can complain about:

PPT concluding that the child does not have the right to individually adapted instruction.
A formal decision that deviates from PPT's recommendation without good justification.
Hours assigned, organisation or staffing that does not match needs.
An IOP that is not being followed in practice.

The whole process from PPT to decision is covered in special-needs education and the IOP — rights and process.

3. Complaint about the school environment

When the child is not safe and well at school, this is the most powerful complaint right parents have. The case usually starts with a written notice to the principal. If the school does not do enough within a reasonable time, the case can go directly to the County Governor without having to complain about a formal decision. We cover this in depth below, because the process differs a little from decision-based complaints.

4. Complaint about a grade

A grade complaint is its own genre. It covers both term marks and exam grades. For term marks, the review is whether the basis for assessment was consistent with the curriculum; for exams, a new examiner may reassess the answer. The deadline here is stricter — ten days from when the grade became known. This type of complaint is less relevant in primary school and more common in lower- and upper-secondary.

Deadlines — the three-week rule and what it really means

The main rule for complaints against formal decisions is three weeks from when you received the decision. The deadline runs from the day you actually received the decision, not from the date on the letter.

Two things are important about the deadline:

The deadline is binding when a late complaint has no good reason. If you have been ill, did not receive the letter, were away, or similar, the County Governor may still take the case on its merits — but this must be justified.
You do not need to have the complaint completed within the deadline. You can send a preliminary complaint ("I am complaining about the decision, full reasoning to follow within two weeks") to stop the clock. This is used particularly when you need time to gather documentation.

For grade complaints, the deadline is ten days. For school-environment cases there is no classic three-week deadline, because there is not necessarily a formal decision — you can report at any time. But the earlier you document, the stronger the case.

Where to send the complaint

Most complaints should be sent to the same body that made the decision. In practice:

First round: to the school or municipality that made the decision. This gives them the chance to overturn the decision themselves. Many cases are resolved here.
If the municipality upholds the decision: they forward the complaint to the County Governor in the county. The County Governor can overturn the decision, change it, or uphold it.
In school-environment cases: you can report directly to the County Governor once the school has had a reasonable time and has not done enough.

You do not need to know the exact postal address — it is enough to send the complaint to the school (or the principal) with a clear heading "Complaint on …". The school has a duty to forward it.

What a complaint must contain — a checklist

A complaint does not need to be long, but it should be clear. Go through this checklist:

Who you are — parents / guardians, the child's name and class/year.
Which decision or circumstance you are complaining about — date, case number if given.
What you disagree with — short and concrete.
Why you disagree — facts, references to the expert assessment, email correspondence, observations.
What outcome you believe is correct — reversal, a new decision, specific measures.
Documentation attached — copies of the decision, relevant emails, expert assessment, activity plan.
Date and signature — at least one parent, both if there is joint parental responsibility.

The language does not need to be legalistic. The key is that the case is well explained — that the County Governor can understand what has happened without having to guess.

One thing many forget: write a short summary even if you also attach a lot of documentation. The case handler should be able to read the complaint in five minutes and grasp the core. The attachments are for verification, not for reading cover to cover.

The duty to act and the right to complain about bullying

Chapter 9A of the Education Act gives every pupil the right to a safe and good school environment. It is the child's own experience that is decisive — not adults' judgement of whether "it is really that bad". The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training has dedicated resources for school-environment cases.

The school has a duty to act (aktivitetsplikt) covering five parts: pay attention, intervene, report, investigate, and put measures in place. Measures must be written down (in an activity plan, aktivitetsplan) and evaluated.

If the school does not do enough after you have reported in writing and waited a reasonable time — in practice one to two weeks, faster in urgent cases — the case can be reported to the County Governor. This is the enforcement scheme for the school environment, and it has teeth: the County Governor can order specific measures, set deadlines, and in serious cases issue orders to the municipality as school owner.

The whole process — from first concern to enforcement report — is described more fully in bullying in Norwegian schools.

An important nuance: you do not need to wait for a "decision" to report a school-environment case. You can report on the grounds that the school's duty to act has not been met.

Parallel tracks when it is urgent

When the child is unsafe right now — acute bullying, a threatening situation, suicidal thoughts — it is not right to wait for formal case processing. Several tracks must run in parallel:

Immediate measures from the school — reorganisation, an adult point of safety, physical separation from those causing harm.
Health support — family doctor, school nurse, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (BUP).
Police — in cases of violence, threats, or sustained harassment.
Written notice to the principal with a deadline.
A report to the County Governor in parallel, not afterwards.

It is allowed to say clearly: "We are reporting the case to the County Governor today. That does not stop cooperation with the school — but we cannot wait until school leadership gets back from holiday." You do not need to apologise for using your right to complain.

What to expect after filing a complaint

Once the complaint has been received:

The school / municipality should acknowledge receipt — usually within a few days.
They should consider whether to overturn the decision themselves before forwarding.
If they uphold it, they should send the case to the County Governor with their own statement.
The County Governor should inform you of expected processing time.
You have the right to submit additional information along the way.

It is not unusual for a complaint case to take 2–6 months. School-environment cases can move faster if the County Governor sees that the child is in acute distress. Complex special-needs cases can drag on because they need expert documentation.

You can call the County Governor along the way to ask about status. Be calm, concrete and regular. Cases that lose attention are forgotten more easily than cases that are followed up.

What you do if you succeed — and if you do not

If you succeed, the school / municipality must implement a new decision. Ask for a written account of how the new decision will be carried out — hours, staff, deadlines. If it does not happen, report back to the County Governor and ask them to follow up on their own ruling. It is allowed, and sometimes necessary.

If you do not succeed, there are still avenues:

Ask for a detailed written justification.
Consider whether new information may support a new case later — for example a new expert assessment, a changed situation, or new incidents.
In serious cases you can bring the matter to an ombudsperson (Barneombudet, Sivilombudet), or pursue litigation with legal advice.
In the case of a grade complaint that is not upheld, there is in practice no further appeal.

The statistics show that a meaningful share of complaint cases lead to full or partial success for parents. This should not be off-putting — it is precisely why the right to complain exists.

Free help along the way

You do not have to pay to get help with a complaint:

The Parents' Committee for Primary and Secondary Education (FUG) — a national advisory service for parents, free of charge.
The Ombudsperson for Children — can give advice and, in some cases, take a case up on principle.
The Bullying Ombudsperson (Mobbeombudet) in the county — specifically for school-environment cases.
The County Governor itself — is required to give guidance on how to complain.
Legal assistance via the legal-aid cover in your insurance, in heavier cases.

Other resources you may need in parallel: in cases of a denial of a leave application (Norwegian only), a dispute over school transport (Norwegian only), or when the child is not granted delayed school start (Norwegian only) that you believe is professionally justified. For a quick overview of a municipality's schools and which one is the local school, browse the municipality's school pages — for example Trondheim, where each school page (such as Rothaugen skole in Bergen) lists contact details for the principal and leadership team.

The right to complain exists to be used. It is not a threat against the school — it is part of the system. Parents who complain clearly and well generally get more thorough case handling. The school must be able to take it. That is their job.

Complaints about schools — how to proceed, step by step