Lies on Lies from Management at LPHS
ERO rely on the accuracy of the Board Assurance Statement (BAS) which is a self-audit checklist completed by the BOT as a true and accurate account of their compliance. I have received a copy of the LPHS BAS for 2009 and can see some glaring errors in that they claim compliance with and all reasonable steps to meet their legal requirements. Clearly I don’t agree with this in the areas of Health and Safety, Board Administration and Personnel. This document was signed by the Principal of Logan Park High School Jane Johnson and the then Chair of the Board of Trustees Margi MacMurdo-Reading. It is interesting in that the pages set aside for areas of non-compliance that they are seeking to improve are blank.
ERO relied on the contents of this document to produce there 2009 report on the school. It was not audited or checked in anyway which must raise questions regarding the value and validity of that report. The Ministry of Education in correspondence with me have used the clean ERO Report as a reason for not investigating in fact all they did was write to the school asking if due process was followed. To which the show said yes. I strongly disagree that it had been as not only were Ministry of Education guidelines ignored so were their legal obligations. It becomes clear that it is lies from the school that allows situations like this to develop and incompetent management that allows them to expand.
This week the Ministry of Education wrote to me and invited me to meet with them and discuss my complaint. They have just realised after nearly 2 years and a few reviews that no one from the Ministry has ever meet with me to discuss it I have accepted this invitation with the following email.
Dear
Thank you, I have now received the documents requested. I do however take issue with some of the statements contained within, there are quite a number of points I think have been missed completely and considerable misunderstandings. Firstly relating to the confusion between my complaint and Xxxxxxx’s problems. While related these are quite separate and I rely on more than just detail related to single teacher or incident to support my complaint. I have done considerable research.
I am quite comfortable labelling the Principle of LPHS as a malicious and manipulative liar, I believe that she has lied to Students, Staff, ERO, the Ministry of Education, PPTA and of course hold documents that support my opinion. It is not a huge leap to assume she has also lied to the BOT. But my complaint should have put them on guard against this, had they or the Ministry of Education acted on it.
I am extremely comfortable now that the OSH and Dishonesty portions of my complaint are easily proven which raises the question as to how this task could have fallen to me. Whose job is it to insure that the Ministry’s guidelines are followed and the regulatory and legal obligations met? With regards to the bullying this obviously will be the next investigation I will be undertaking and have support from a number of ex employees of LPHS and an ex BOT member. I have serious doubts about tomorrow’s schools and the management systems that form it. It’s my view that the system rarely works well in the lower graded schools and that LPHS proves that the necessary checks and balances are not in place to protect the interests of all the stake holders, namely teachers and students. I feel that the integrity of the school is certainly compromised as are all school structures as they exist at present.
I am more than happy to meet with you next week and hope we will be able to make some progress.
Yours truly,
Rob Owen
It’s a shame that the incoming board were not able to see the errors of the past to as I have never met with or discussed the issues with them either. But maybe we will get some traction soon.
RebekahWell, your video has been removed, but I can imnigae what it was like. This topic always gets to me because my brother was bullied. And, sure enough, when he stood up for himself, he got in trouble, too. I don’t think he ever really resorted to violence but the two boys got into enough of a fight that they were both in trouble. He was bullied continuously by the same boy and even though the school knew about it, nothing they did actually changed anything. Perhaps the bullying changed forms (physical to verbal) but it continued. At one point my dad actually went directly to the parents of the other boy and told them if it didn’t stop he would press charges. I feel my brother had every right to defend himself if he were getting physically bullied. In fact, my dad even taught him basic ways of doing so in case anything happened. Unfortunately, teachers and schools often have little recourse to effectively discipline the bullies. My brother and the bully, for example, had to write a letter explaining how they felt and what happened. I’m not quite sure how that teaches the bully that the behaviour is unacceptable or the bullied child that the school is on their side to defend and protect them. I’m not sure what can be done to stop bullies but I’m pretty certain that what is done now is not usually effective. A slap on the wrist and a go play nice doesn’t work once the kids are back on the playground.