Pressure, harassment and institutional abuse. How we were forced to withdraw our children from Transylvania College

A personal story about pressure, imposed clauses and emotional blackmail from Transylvania College and Ruxandra Baciu (Mercea)

Click aici pentru versiunea în limba Română

---

---

This text is based on my personal experiences, my perceptions, and information from open sources that led me to the convictions I share here. I don’t aim to persuade anyone; for me, writing is a form of personal therapy—telling the truth. The truth will set you free.

I do not wish to attack the school or Ms. Ruxandra Baciu personally. How she manages her resources is her responsibility.

I only want to briefly recall a part of my child’s childhood that, in my view, the school’s owner took away—the right to play with his friends. Through what I experienced as emotional blackmail, we were pushed to the limit of compliance—“we are obliged to sign an addendum.”

This is not just my story or my child’s story but, as I see it, the story of many captive families who remain silent out of fear for their children’s education. I have broken those chains and accept the consequences of that freedom.

If any factual information in this text is incorrect, I ask the school’s representatives to write to me and provide the relevant documents; I will amend the article accordingly. I do not want to throw mud at the school where my children studied; I want us to understand why we, as parents, sometimes become prisoners of social conventions.

My child had the strength to say, “I don’t want this anymore,” and we stand with him.

---

Who I am and why I’m writing this story

I’m Sergiu Biriș, 42, an entrepreneur from Cluj-Napoca and the father of two children, aged 10 and 14—until recently students at Transylvania College.

With this piece, I aim to bring transparency to the extremely stressful experience Transylvania College has put us through over the past three months and to speak about certain aspects I haven’t been able to make public until now. I hope it helps other parents.

I will set out, in chronological order, what happened, what documents we received, what pressure was put on us, what we were asked to sign, and why we ultimately decided to leave Transylvania College.

This is our personal family experience, based on meetings, documents received from the school, and written correspondence.

Context

We were clients of Transylvania College for more than 10 years.

Our children, Catia (10) and Sebastian (14), have been part of Transylvania College since kindergarten. Until this year (2025) we had no issues with the school. Everything seemed to run smoothly. The kids were happy.

From a customer-of-a-business perspective, I estimate we have paid the school over €200,000 during these years.

Beyond that, we tried to be active in the community and help the school grow. We took part in organizing the school gala, served as judges for students’ startup projects, and offered consulting on the school’s digital development, etc.

We invested a lot—financially and emotionally.

Where it all began: Ruxandra Baciu’s (Mercea) “coaching” sessions

The problems started to appear over the last year. Ruxandra Baciu (formerly Mercea), the owner of the school, began getting actively involved in the children’s education through various “coaching” sessions she started holding for students in the upper grades (eighth grade and up).

For context: Ruxandra Baciu has no accreditation in this regard. She is not a psychologist or an educator within the school’s curriculum. She is the school’s owner, and nothing more from an educational standpoint. Even so, these “coaching” sessions began and continued for quite some time without us, the parents, intervening, because we tried to avoid conflicts with Ruxandra Baciu as much as possible.

If anyone had questions about the legitimacy of these sessions (lack of accreditation, etc.), the answer given was that the school psychologist, Ms. Cristina Ungvari, participated in these meetings, “so it’s fine.” However:

1. Cristina Ungvari did not attend all the sessions, and

2. even when she did, Ms. Cristina Ungvari is not listed as a psychologist with a license to practice (verified on 02.09.2025 on the Romanian Unified Register of Psychologists (R.U.P.) - dowload link from the website of the Romanian College of Psychologists)

This whole “let’s play at being psychologists and therapists—without accreditation” thing is, in any case, a recurring theme in this story and in the school’s overall way of operating, as you’ll see next.

Another response we received—from Anca Rusu, the school’s current head—was: “Given how many therapy sessions Ruxandra has had… she knows what she’s doing.” So if you’ve been to a psychologist, you automatically become a good psychologist. By that logic, if you’ve set the forest on fire many times, you’re probably a good firefighter.

How can this be the logic by which an educational institution in Romania shapes children’s minds?

And that’s precisely the core of the problem: you call yourself a “coach” and shape children’s minds as you please—without accreditation and without anyone able to stop you.

The “wokeness” ideology taught at Transylvania College

The most painful issue is actually tied to the principles, directions, and ideology that R.B. holds—things that ripple through the school and, by extension, our children. I’m speaking specifically about the wokeness ideology,, a more aggressive form of the “political correctness” wave found in the United States. A simple example, plainly put: no one is allowed to say anything to you, because any minor negative situation or conflict is interpreted as “bullying.” I’m talking here even about situations like: you disagreed with what I said and I saw you roll your eyes = bullying; or irony/sarcasm = bullying. In practice, the way I see it, anything you do can be interpreted as bullying.

And if this is the direction R.B. wants for Transylvania College, you start to worry about the “coaching sessions,” what they mean for my child, and what he is learning from them…

But I said nothing. Because we didn’t want to get on R.B.’s bad side—probably just like many of you reading this.

Except things didn’t stop there. That was only the beginning.

Sebastian’s suspension from school

On Friday, May 16, 2025, at 4:00 p.m., we received the following email from Transylvania College:

”Dear Ms and Mr Biris,

Unfortunately, Sebastian will be suspended from attendance at school for 3 days next week starting on Monday, the 19th of May 2025.

Please find the details of the suspensions in the letter attached.

If you wish to discuss the period of suspension, any conditions imposed please contact …”

This is the suspension letter: Internal Suspension letter (PDF).

 — 

So, on the last day of the week—Friday at 4:00 p.m.—you tell me that starting Monday Sebastian is suspended from school for three days.

The document claims that, in accordance with the school’s Behaviour Policy and after “several prior restorative measures,” Sebastian was suspended. But this was the first time we had heard of any such thing. Despite what the document says, we received no prior notice whatsoever.

What’s more, two days earlier we had a meeting with the then head of school, Ms. Vancea, to discuss Sebastian’s future as he was due to continue into high school. We talked about which subjects he should choose for high school, and so on. Ms. Vancea had nothing but praise for Sebastian, so we had no reason to worry. Moreover, his form tutor, Ms. Lidia Paun, knew nothing about this suspension; she also found out on Friday, at the same time we did.

So after the suspension email, we refused to accept what was written in that letter and asked for a meeting at the school. It had to be a mistake. But writing emails was pointless, because it was Friday afternoon—who was going to answer?!

So, first thing Monday morning we went to the school to try to get a meeting. No matter whom we talked to, all roads led to Ruxandra Baciu. The suspension had been “served” by her. Apparently, she was the one best placed to know what’s good for the children. She knew who was well-behaved and who wasn’t—after all, she was doing “coaching” with them.

We tried to get a meeting with R.B., but without success. Eventually, purely by chance, we ran into her in the hallway and managed to get a meeting scheduled for the next day, Tuesday.

I told her it had to be a mistake and that we had brought Sebastian to school until things were clarified. She said no, the suspension stands. Sebastian is not allowed at school. “Come tomorrow with Sebastian and then we’ll see what kind of child we’re dealing with.” “Don’t believe anything your son tells you—he’s lying to you!” (!!!)

Naturally, after such a characterization we started to worry; we talked to our son to figure out what the problem might be. Sebastian said he didn’t know what he had done, or what could be so serious as to warrant a suspension. No matter how much we talked it through, we reached the same conclusion. Nothing seemed serious enough to require a suspension—especially an immediate one.

After talking with Sebastian, we became increasingly appalled by the way the school had handled the situation: no prior notice, no email, no warning, nothing. Suspension right off the bat—end of story.

So we began reading more about the school’s Behaviour Policy and about what “bullying” actually means, because that’s what this seemed to be about.

According to Transylvania College’s own policy, the school can suspend a student for three days only after applying a restorative process (as mentioned in the email), made up of three levels (a ladder for escalating any situation):

• Level 1: Restorative Meeting

  A facilitated meeting to repair harm and rebuild trust among those involved.

• Level 2: Group Intervention

  Focused group sessions, tracking of behaviour change. Community service is assigned to those who bullied or remained silent bystanders.

• Level 3: 3-Day Suspension + Family Therapy

  A three-day suspension plus mandatory start of individual or family therapy. Both parents/guardians involved in the child's life must participate.

We were at Level 3 without having gone through the first two. We had no email, no minutes, nothing. They just suspended him—end of story.

Even under national legislation there’s a similar escalation ladder—at the very least you notify the parent that there’s a problem. You don’t suspend a child from the outset. But it seems Transylvania College has its own country; it doesn’t go by Romanian law.

---

Legal framework, in brief

• Law 221/2019 (amending the National Education Law 1/2011): explicitly bans bullying and requires schools to have clear intervention procedures.

• Order 4343/2020 (anti-bullying norms): requires a documented investigation within 48 hours, parent notification, and progressive measures (restorative → consequences) — not immediate punishment “from the start.”

• The school’s policy mirrors the same ladder (Level 1 → Level 2 → Level 3).

Full texts: Law 221/2019 · Order 4343/2020

---

The meeting with R.B. was next, and we already felt wronged, but we hoped we could resolve something. It wasn’t such a big deal for our son to be suspended, but why should that be on his record if it wasn’t warranted? Moreover, if he made another mistake, he’d already be eligible for another suspension or even expulsion…

The meeting with Ruxandra Baciu

The next day, we met with R.B., who asked that the meeting begin with just Sebastian—she and he would talk in front of us, but we were not to intervene. In the second phase, we adults would draw the conclusions.

The first part of the meeting was a shock to me. R.B. pulled out a list of everything that could count as bullying—starting with the kind we all know, involving violence, etc.—but the list was much longer; it included sarcasm, irony, or rolling one’s eyes as forms of bullying. Then she started walking Sebastian through a checklist of anything he could remember having done… ever. She asked Sebi why he thought he was there.

Sebi replied that most likely it was because he laughed during her coaching sessions.

RB: “No, that’s not why you’re here.” Then she went through the list… and after many checkpoints where she kept pressing Sebi to remember what he’d done in the past…

RB: “Isn’t it true that you walked past the seventh-grade class in the hallway and said some girls were ‘whores’?”

S: “I’ve never called the girls that; I don’t remember.”

RB: “You don’t remember. When feelings are intense, they block your memory…”

Of course a child doesn’t remember everything he has or hasn’t done over the last few school years. Who knows—maybe at some point, on some chat, he called some girls “bitches.” But I’m certain he has never used the word “whore” in a hallway, in public. I know my son. And anyone who knows Sebi knows he isn’t a bully.

The manipulative way the questions were put, extracting a “confession” of everything the child had ever done or not done at school just to prove he’s a bully—made me sick.

As a parent, as a father, I barely held myself back from making a scene. I waited for that grotesque session of manipulative questioning to end, and then it was our turn to talk.

I tried to confront her, to say they hadn’t respected their own Behaviour Policy—which should have meant we would have been informed much earlier if there was truly a problem. I tried to define bullying as it’s defined in law, not according to a list from which it follows that everything counts as bullying. I tried many things, but without success.

She said, “we would have reached suspension anyway” (!!!).

In other words, the suspension was predetermined.

Basically, we were tilting at windmills.

The only thing left I could do at that point was tell her there was just one bully in that conversation: her. Her behavior in that meeting was, in my opinion, intimidating and abusive.

I told her I believe she is trying to push us out of the school, even though I don’t understand why. And that she can abuse parents because there are hardly any alternatives.

I also told her she applies double standards. There was an incident in the past when one of Sebastian’s classmates, pushed Sebi during recess, and Sebi fell and broke his arm. We spent hours with him in the ER; he had to undergo general anesthesia so they could set the bone. He lost his spot on the basketball team. He missed the ski vacation.

That boy was not suspended. Perhaps because he is the son of the person who owns the company that handled the school’s interior design. Perhaps.

In short, I told her that we believe she is subjecting us to an abuse simply because she can.

After the meeting, even though we knew we wouldn’t achieve much, we decided to send the school a formal notice expressing our dissatisfaction and reiterating that the process had been unfair. We stated that we had lost trust in a school that does not respect its own rules and resorts to abusive practices.

The notification can be viewed here. It has an official registration number in the school’s archive.

We never received a reply to that notice.

After the suspension, we thought it would all be over. We thought R.B. would be satisfied that she had shown her power, stroked her ego, and that would be that. She would stop there. But no—it turned out to be only the first step. Step two followed.

The Addendum. Forced to sign a discriminatory, impossible-to-sign addendum in order to continue at the school.

A month later, on June 25, we—together with 11 other families (as far as I know; there may be more)—received by email an addendum that we were required to sign for Sebastian to be allowed to continue at Transylvania College.

“I hope my message finds you well. Following the suspension period, an addendum has been prepared which sets out the expectations regarding behaviour and the therapy requirements.

Please find the document attached; it will need to be signed by you and returned at the start of the school year. We will fill in the information regarding the contract number.

For the therapy-related requirements, you will need to be in contact with Cristina Ungvari, Head of Wellbeing (cc’d).

I hope Sebi and Catia have a lovely vacation and that we’ll see each other again in the new school year.”

You can see the addendum here.

You don’t need to be a lawyer or any kind of legal expert to realize that document is an unacceptable document with disproportionate clauses. .

• A discriminatory document, because not all parents at the school received it—only the “suspended” ones.

• A document that requires us to undergo family therapy for a minimum of two years (!!!!), plus to send regular updates on the status of that therapy…

• Plus: “If the student engages in any other antisocial, bullying-type behaviors, this will lead to an immediate suspension, as part of the ongoing behavioral support and consequences already in place. Continued incidents may lead to an extended suspension.”

Given that EVERYTHING can be interpreted as bullying, what more can I say about that last clause?

So my family has to sign that we agree with you that we have a problem and that we need at least two years of therapy?! Just so we can continue at the school? Seriously?

So clearly, it’s something you just can’t sign. No sane person would sign such a thing.

As a side note: I have no problem with going to therapy. And I probably would have been willing to go through such a process if there had been evidence of a real problem. But nothing was ever presented to us. Only personal opinions, words, and R.B.’s subjective conclusions—on the basis of which Sebastian was suspended.

Of course we did not sign this document. What followed were email after email in which we refused to sign and asked, in writing, for confirmation that signing this addendum was not required for Sebastian to continue at the school.

The only responses we received from Anca Rusu and Cristina Ungvari, R.B.’s two assistants, were that we could not continue at the school without signing that document.

Then, finally, we received a message reiterating that we needed therapy and recommending the office of a certain lady who, as we later found out, is also not a licensed psychologist (!!!). Not that we would have gone ahead with the therapy, but if we’re going to play at “wellbeing,” I still expected a minimum of effort from the “professionals” at Transylvania College.

Then, in the midst of this email exchange, something extremely interesting happened:

The first court victory against the contractual abuses of Transylvania College and Ruxandra Baciu. A unique precedent in Cluj-Napoca.

In the meantime, one of the families—friends of ours—moved quickly and sued Transylvania College for the abusive, unilateral termination of their son’s enrollment contract. In other words, exactly what was about to happen to us as well.

The best part? THEY WON! They secured the boy’s reinstatement at the school, via an emergency procedure, in record time.

As far as I know, this is the second such case in Romania and the first in Cluj-Napoca. An extremely valuable precedent against the abuses of Transylvania College and Ruxandra Baciu.

Yes, a court ruling ordered the student’s reinstatement on an emergency basis; in my opinion, it confirms the contractual abuses.

We chose to terminate our contracts with Transylvania College and move our children to another school.

We reached September 1, 2025. This whole ordeal began on May 16—three and a half months ago.

At Transylvania College, the new school year starts today, September 2.

Responses from Transylvania College stopped coming. The only message they came back with was a proposal for a face-to-face meeting. They wouldn’t provide a clear written reply confirming they were dropping the requirement to sign the addendum:

“We believe that a calm, open, face-to-face conversation can help us find common ground to support Sebastian’s development in a healthy and responsible way, in line with the school’s values and his real needs.”

In other words, the school knows the child’s REAL needs—not us, the parents.

I think they had already realized they’d put themselves in a position they couldn’t win from, given the precedent set in court, where they lost shamefully.

They probably planned to pressure us to sign that addendum when we came to the school, in a face-to-face conversation, since the school year was about to start. Time was working in their favor.

It was clear we no longer had any chance of success in this effort, so we chose to terminate the contracts ourselves. R.B. probably got what she wanted. We left the school. I hope she’s happy now.

The less visible part of this whole ordeal, was how deeply the children were affected. They kept asking, “What did we do wrong? Why us? Why do we have to change schools?” That, more than anything, drove me to write this article.

Why has no one spoken up until now? Leverage, pressure, influence, and connections.

You might be wondering—just as I did—why nothing has been heard from other parents until now. Because I know of multiple cases that haven’t come to light yet. There were 12 families, including us, who received the addendum. I’ve heard a few of them are starting legal action. Who knows how many more there have been in the past…

The answer is complicated. R.B. has many levers she uses to get whatever she wants. And if she doesn’t get it, she probably prefers to force, pressure, harass, and abuse—with no one stepping in to stop it.

A few reasons I personally see for why she gets away with everything:

• There is no independent oversight board at the school. R.B. can do anything without being challenged by anyone. Her parents—the school’s true founders—were at one point on the board, but they chose to leave. And when I say “they chose to leave,” there’s room here for an investigative article where I’ll leave it to more professional people to do their job.

• Pressure and leverage over parents whose children are in the school. Once you’ve started on the English track and the Cambridge/Edexcel curriculum (i.e., schooling as in the UK), it’s very hard to transfer your child to another school—especially into the Romanian track. The only alternative in Cluj is Royal School, a smaller school with a similar curriculum, where we will also be moving our children. As a parent, when you’re left with only one other option, you end up having to swallow (almost) anything. You make a sponsorship, do a favor, this and that. But if you don’t, there’s a good chance you’ll have problems later on. In other words: the school abuses its dominant position. R.B. knows you don’t have a choice.

• Parents who leave no longer have a reason to tell their story. After going through the ordeal, parents who leave Transylvania College don’t have the energy, time, inclination, or money to keep fighting or to speak up. They just want to see their children transferred and happy somewhere else. R.B. relies on that.

• Many of the teachers and staff are in the same situation as the parents, because they also have children at the school. So they have no choice. They keep quiet and go along. They’re just executors who sign and send abusive emails with a smile, at R.B.’s command—turning a blind eye and believing they’re doing the right thing.

• Leverage over the authorities: City Hall and Emil Boc probably cater to R.B. for two reasons: (1) having a good international school in the city helps attract expats and international investors; and (2) if this school were to shut down, Cluj would immediately face a social problem with 1,000 children left without access to education and families with no options. In other words, a major bargaining chip for obtaining ANYTHING from the authorities. I presume that’s how you end up with scandals like the ones reported by PressOne.

R.B. knows all these things. She uses them and thus feels protected. I still hope there is backbone within the Romanian authorities—especially at the national level—because things cannot remain like this forever. I’m inclined to believe we are no longer a country where we can play God.

Personally, I have begun filing complaints with the Cluj County School Inspectorate, the Ministry of Education, the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD), ANAF (the National Agency for Fiscal Administration), the Competition Council, as well as with the accreditation bodies Cambridge Assessment International Education and Pearson Edexcel.

I believe abuses like this can no longer be swept under the rug. I refuse to stay silent and put up with it. It’s time for things to change.

Conclusion

I believe and hope that Transylvania College will never close.

But I also believe that this educational institution in Romania has a duty to operate in a way that shows respect, transparency, and fairness toward parents and children, honors its own rules, and complies with the laws of the country.

Transylvania College needs different leadership—one with a completely different attitude. I also believe it needs an independent board with the authority to dismiss even its founder, if the situation requires it. Checks and balances, as the Americans say, not a dictatorship. Otherwise, abuses like these by Transylvania College will only become more frequent.

I’m not publishing this article to “win the internet.” Personally, I have nothing left to gain. I’ve moved my children out of Transylvania College, and I have plenty of other things on my plate that would let me turn a blind eye and move on. But I can’t.

Reputation and trust are built over years and can be lost in a day. Any school—especially a private one—should understand that. When you ask parents for trust, follow your own rules. All of them. Every time.

If you’re going through a similar situation, I hope these lines save you time, money, and nerves. And perhaps help raise the standard for all private educational institutions in Romania.

If you’ve been through similar situations with Transylvania College, I encourage you to leave a comment below.

Transylvania College, see you in court.

Sergiu Biriș

 — 

P.S. 1: To counter this story, I expect R.B. to speak poorly about Sebastian and about us as a family. She’ll probably say he was a problem child, that I’m a frustrated father, etc. I expect this, because she’s done it before—including in the case with the precedent I mentioned above—where they wrote a 90-page false document about how problematic that child was, how he disrupted classes, and so on. A child who is literally one of the most well-behaved and kind kids I know. Ninety pages of lies about a child, from an educational institution in Romania! Incredible.

P.S. 2: Funny how life goes—back in 2015 I donated a sum of money toward the founding of Royal School, the very school we’re now moving our children to. I did it precisely because I believed Cluj needed an alternative. This article has nothing to do with that donation. I have no involvement in that project other than being a former donor—otherwise I would have moved my kids there at some point in the ten years since. If anything, it only shows how much trust I had in Transylvania College…

PS 3: The evidence pack—documents and correspondence—in chronological order is available on request