Students of German & Teacher Disadvantaged by CAPNA
What should students be able to expect from a High School if they enrol for a subject in year 9 expecting to complete their studies through to year 13. I don’t think its unreasonable to expect that a contract has been made with the school and that every effort should be made to ensure that they are able to complete this study to the highest level they can achieve. Where a school is required through the CAPNA process to reduce FTTE hours the Ministry of Education should require that the process be carried out to ensure that no student is disadvantaged. The CAPNA is a Ministry of Education requirement of Board’s of Trustees (BOT’s). They should have a duty of care to produce guidelines for this to ensure that regardless of BOT competence that students are kept well informed if a subject is to be dropped and that adequate provision is made for students to complete their studies to the highest level at the Ministry of Education’s expense. Or at the very least the subject should be phased out allowing students to complete their studies as has been achieved at Queens High School.
Logan Park High School took a different approach to cancelling German without notice to the Students although it had been common knowledge amongst teachers at LPHS that the CAPNA would involve either one of the troublesome departments either Phys. Ed., or German well ahead of when the decision was dew to be made (German was disestablished and the Phys. Ed. HOD left under secret and sinister circumstances). It would have come as a major shock to German Students as LPHS had recently announced an exchange program with a German High School and a large proportion of their Foreign Fee Paying students are German. A situation likely to change with German language teaching discontinued.
The workload list published earlier in this Blog clearly shows that many teachers at LPHS were so lightly loaded that the CAPNA could have been easily shaved off a variety of subjects without any effect on the subject integrity of the school or damage to students.
Further the teacher made redundant JHR it’s the first line of the workload chart and clearly the most worked teacher in the school. I have mentioned before the competency procedures against JHR and will deal with these in detail later. The HOD’s Marion Brinsley (unqualified teacher) and Barbara Fitzsimons will feature prominently in that Post and were major winners in the CAPNA gaining more hours. JHR was still teaching 13 hours a week after the disestablishment of German and should have been offered a P/Time position. It’s also of note that the school advertised for an English teacher during this period, a position that should have been offered to JHR.
Its hard to believe that any considered business decision was made by the BOT or that the management (Jane Johnson, Roger Tobin) were able to provide them with the information for good decision making, frankly I have no faith in the ethics or integrity of any level of management at LPHS. I hold a similar opinion of the PPTA of which Roger Tobin is a past national President (more to this story later).
Filed under: Back ground, LPHS, Minedu, PPTA | Tagged: Bullied, bully, Bullying of Teachers by Management and Boards (LPHS), Dunedin, Harassed from work, New Zealand, NZ, Overloaded