Naples education councillor Maura Striano has condemned intrusions and vandalism at city schools during the recent wave of student occupations, describing the damage as harm done by students to their own shared future.
Striano, who is also a pedagogy professor at the University of Naples Federico II, frames the episodes as a failure to recognize schools as shared public goods. Rather than treating the damage only as a punishment issue, she proposes restorative paths involving students whose responsibility is established, including service for the affected school community.
Three primary schools among the damaged sites
Striano names the primary schools Russo-Solimena, Scudillo-Carafa-Salvemini and Dietro la Vigna among the affected sites. At Dietro la Vigna, she says, two four-metre pine trees were cut down.
Responsibility for repairs is divided, she notes: upper-secondary school buildings fall under the Metropolitan City of Naples, while families should be involved in the educational response.
A 15-school damage report
A separate report based on complaints and reports from school heads describes damage at 15 schools in Naples and its province, including vandalism during student occupations and external raids.
The report, cited by Il Mattino from police and Carabinieri accounts, connects the 15 schools to damage reports during the period of occupations and protests. Reported incidents include scooters entering the gym of the Rossini school, emptied fire extinguishers, broken windows, classroom damage and alleged theft or damage at other institutes.
The available reports distinguish between external raids, damage during occupations and student self-management, but do not establish responsibility for every individual incident. The underlying official documents were not independently acquired, and the sources do not provide a complete, independently verified estimate of total financial damage.
Why students say they occupied
Students present the occupations as a political and educational mobilization, citing school infrastructure problems, insufficient staff and a desire for greater participation in school life.
A student account of the occupation of Naples’s Vittorio Emanuele II says it lasted 15 days and included assemblies, activities and internal debates. The same mobilization is described as involving more than 60 schools in the metropolitan area.
That testimony is a first-person advocacy account and should not be treated as a neutral assessment of the occupations’ effects, but it explains the context in which students distinguish protest and self-organized school life from vandalism.
What remains open is accountability in individual cases: Striano’s proposal focuses on restorative measures where responsibility is confirmed, while many reported episodes are still described only through school complaints and newspaper accounts of law-enforcement reports.