Langkær Gymnasium & HF

As the demographics of the school's students changed more rapidly after 2010, the school faced a number of challenges that tested its identity. A number of former and current students from the school travelled to Syria to fight for ISIS, with police stating that individuals with connections to the Grimhøj Mosque (Danish: Grimhøjmoskeen) had been a catalyst for the group.[12] In 2020, the late Victor Kjærulff, a former teacher and student counsellor at Langkaer Gymnasium, reflected upon some of the difficulties that he had encountered as a teacher at a school where an increasing number of students had non-western backgrounds.[13] The school worked with the police, religious leaders, local schools and other organisations to counter radicalisation and to provide insight into democratic processes.[14] One example of this was the visit of the American ambassador to Denmark, Rufus Gifford, who took part in a workshop on democratic participation and civic responsibility in 2015.[15] Another example was the school banning group prayer sessions in an attempt to stop social control and maintain its integrity as a secular school.[16]

The relative lack of minority students at other high schools in the area was a significant 'push' factor and Langkær's reputation and diversity was in itself a 'pull' factor for applicants of non-Danish backgrounds. However, in 2016, Langkaer Gymnasium was the focus of significant national and international media attention after it became public knowledge that the school had allocated students into classes based on whether they had a Danish background.[7][17] The school's then principal, Yago Bundgaard, and the chairman of Langkaer's active student council, Jens Philip Puriya Jazdani, both described the move as the 'least worst' option open to the school at the time as the school sought to maintain its Danish identity, while still offering an inclusive environment to students of other backgrounds.[18][19][20] After the controversy, the number of new students who chose the school's STX programme decreased dramatically.[21][22] Jazdani and Bundgaard would later clash on matters such as the students' right to pray in groups as Langkaer Gymnasium sought to solve a unique set of challenges relating to integration.[23]

Langkaer's financial footing had previously been sound, but faced increasing problems as a result of dwindling student numbers coupled with government funding cuts. Unbeknownst to the school's staff, Yago Bundgaard made contact to other educational institutions in the local area and agreed in principle to a merger with Aarhus Tech. Bundgaard was of the opinion that a merger was the only means of securing the school's long-term survival and thus being able to offer high school programmes in the western half of Aarhus. Aarhus Tech's leadership called the merger a "good match".[24] Yago Bundgaard, who would become a director in the new organisation, would later admit that Langkaer Gymnasium would be 'swallowed up' by the merger.[25] Nevertheless, the merger was in due course ratified by the school's board of governors. Despite increased spending on marketing, including advertisements on buses in Aarhus, the decreasing student numbers and ensuing staff redundancies that had marked the final years of Langkaer Gymnasium continued under the school's new leadership. There were 10 full-time redundancies in the 'youth' division of Aarhus Tech immediately after the merger, the majority of which were teachers from Langkaer Gymnasium.[26] Further redundancies would follow. Within two years of the merger, all of Langkaer's management staff, except the former vice principal, Marie Kongskov, had left the school. In the same period, all of Langkaer's technical and administrative staff were made redundant, had left or were relocated, canteen management was centralised and the school's administrative and communications systems had been replaced. These fundamental changes to its governance, leadership, staff, and organisational structure were followed by Aarhus Tech's confirmation that a closure of its STX, Hf, Pre-IB and IB programmes in Tilst was imminent.[27]

On October 15, 2018, then Minister for Education, Merete Riisager, had made the announcement that Langkaer Gymnasium had formally merged with Aarhus Tech.[28] As a result, the school's name changed to AARHUS GYMNASIUM, Tilst (capitals intended). The ramifications of the merger were controversial, not least the introduction of STX classes to a location in the heart of Aarhus, at Dollerupvej.[29] Prior to 2016, high schools in Aarhus had coexisted in a friendly manner, meeting regularly to share pedagogical and leadership practices and there were 'gentleman' agreements with regards to marketing etc. This contrasted the situation in other larger Danish towns and cities, where schools had taken increasingly aggressive approaches to ensure that students chose them. However, government funding cuts coincided with the increasing problems relating to the distribution of students with non-Danish cultural backgrounds in the Aarhus area. As such, applicants had become an increasingly important commodity, with falling numbers resulting in staff redundancies, but Langkaer's issues showed that vastly altered student demographics could quickly lead to a decrease in the size of future cohorts. As an indication of a previously unseen willingness to pursue aggressive tactics among Danish educational institutions, five high schools in Aarhus, led by Marselisborg Gymnasium, actively investigated the possibility of a hostile takeover of Langkaer Gymnasium in August 2018.[30]