More parents have been asking "when will this actually be decided" after reporting a school violence case. It's a fair question. According to data released by the Seoul Metropolitan Council, 45.1% of School Violence Prevention Committee reviews in Seoul this year missed the legal processing deadline. Nearly half of all cases aren't being resolved within the time the law allows. Here's how bad the delays actually are, and what parents can request from the school while they wait.

How Bad Are the Delays? Nearly Half of Cases Missed the Deadline

According to data released by Seoul Metropolitan Council Education Committee member Jang Sang-gi, of the 1,507 school violence cases reviewed by Seoul's 11 district education offices between March 1 and August 31, 2026, 679 cases (45.1%) took longer than the legal four-week deadline. Some district offices averaged 8 weeks, with the longest cases taking up to 16 weeks, and at some offices more than 68% of cases ran past deadline. The wide gap between offices means how long you wait can depend heavily on which district your child's school falls under, even within Seoul. This survey didn't include district education offices outside Seoul, so it doesn't tell us how bad delays are elsewhere in the country.

The Legal Deadline Is Four Weeks

Under Article 14 of the Enforcement Decree of the School Violence Prevention Act, the committee is required to convene within 21 days of receiving a request to convene. If there's a compelling reason, the chair can extend that once by up to 7 days -- meaning the review must happen within 28 days, or four weeks, at the outside. The full committee structure and the nine-tier disciplinary measures for the student found responsible are covered in What Happens After You Report School Violence.

Exactly Why Cases Are Backed Up Hasn't Been Spelled Out Yet

The city council cited this data in urging the education office to come up with a plan to clear the backlog. But the specific cause of the delay -- whether it's a shortage of committee members, a rise in the number of cases, or cases clustering at certain district offices -- hasn't been clearly established in any published analysis yet. Rather than guessing at an unconfirmed cause, the priority right now is finding out exactly what stage your own child's case is at. You can contact the school violence division at the district education office handling the case to ask about its status.

Does My Child Have to Stay in the Same Class While Waiting?

A delayed review doesn't mean the school can't do anything in the meantime. If the affected student and their parent request it, the school principal can convene the dedicated response team and, even before the committee's formal decision, immediately implement a suspension from attendance or a class reassignment for the student involved as an emergency measure. This emergency measure has to be reported to the committee right away for ratification, but it's a practical tool for keeping your child out of the same classroom while the review drags on for weeks. Schools don't always bring this up on their own, so it's worth knowing that a parent can request it directly if they think it's needed. You can make the request verbally to the homeroom teacher or the school violence response team, but it's a good idea to keep your own written record of the date and content of the request so you can follow up on how it was handled.

Absences From an Emergency Measure Still Count as Attendance

If the student is suspended under an emergency measure, that absence is treated as an excused absence approved by the principal, so it counts as attendance. Even if the principal later resolves the case on their own or the committee doesn't ratify the emergency measure, that doesn't retroactively affect how the already-elapsed absence period was recorded. For how long a disciplinary measure stays on a student's official record and how it factors into college admissions, see How School Violence Measures Appear on Your Record, which breaks down retention periods by measure number.

There's No Separate Appeal Process for the Delay Itself

Here's the part that's easy to miss: there's no formal complaint or appeal process a parent can file specifically because the review missed its legal deadline. The appeal process only starts after the committee actually issues a decision. For now, contacting the district education office about the case's status and expected timeline is essentially the only lever available for the delay itself. If you end up disagreeing with the decision once it's issued, you need to act within a set window from the date of notice -- that separate process is covered in How to Appeal a School Violence Committee Decision.

Checklist

① If four weeks (21 days plus a possible 7-day extension) have passed since the request to convene with no word, the case is likely delayed. ② Contact the school violence division at the district education office directly to ask about status and expected timing. ③ If you want your child separated from the other student while you wait, you can ask the principal for an emergency suspension or class-reassignment measure. ④ Absences from an emergency measure count as attendance, so there's no need to worry about academic penalties on that front. ⑤ There's no appeal process for the delay itself -- appeals only become available, within a fixed deadline, after the committee issues its decision.