New Zealand Teachers Bullied at School

The Ministry of Education (Minedu), School Boards of Trustee’s (BOT’s), The School Trustees Association (STA) and the Education Review Office (ERO) have lost their way in the modern education environment.  They have forgotten their responsibilities under the State Sector Act.  Their focus tends to be that all issues in schools are employment related matters, This suits them as the cost and onus is on the victims to prove any wrong doing on non compliance matters hardly an act of good faith. The problem they have here is that I am not and never was an employee and they let their bullshit spill over into my life.   Comments like “in our Subjective opinion” and “at our discretion” have to be well thought through and the actions associated must match the requirements of a minefield of legislation. It’s the failure to consider all the relevant Act’s that is the flaw in their thinking and in the past it hasn’t produced any consequences for those who regularly transgress.  They BOT have never meet with me, just ignored the evidence and allowed the bullies to choose another victim.  All of these organisations are publicly funded and are accountable to the public. There has been no law change that would allow any publicly funded organisation to ignore the statutes that govern their responsibilities and public expectation is that the watch dog institutions we fund will protect our interests. At no time has anyone told me there is no basis to my claims. Instead they have simply either refused to investigate or ignored correspondence.  It should be clear to any reader that if there were no substance there would have been moves to shut me down months ago. I did receive one threatening call from a lawyer who didn’t want to name his client.  But he vanished quickly when I suggested we get to court as quickly as possible.

My research to date has found that the problems in schools are national and bullying is rife.  The question of any investigation must be how it spread so far and wide.  Has a state funded organisation accepted it as a norm and promoted it. There is clearly something very sick in our education system and it will require some heavy action and a complete change of culture to correct.  It’s not the teachers that are at fault, the cause is in the administration and management not only at the schools but the education sector as a group.

Logan Park High School has provided the perfect starting point for any investigation with a management that has failed on nearly every possible level.  Students are expected to pay the price of their past financial mismanagement.  Why do we never see the audited accounts for schools after all its public money and being able to see their performance and debt structures would better enable parents to choose a good school.  It seems ridiculous to me that students should at any stage be asked to pay the cost of relieving teachers when they go on field trip. Is the legal with our commitment to a free education at high school level?  It would be a very brave and wealthy parent that would trust the children’s education to this schools administration.

Filed under: Back ground, Bullying, LPHS, Minedu  | | No Comments »

I have now upgraded the blog site so there is space to display the document stream so far. If anybody out there is willing to help with the scanning please drop me an email.  From this point onwards the focus of the blog is going to change a lot as i also begin to define the inadequacies of the entire education system and the failures of the bureaucrats.  This of course combined with the person effects of their inaction.  I’m hoping heads will roll all the way to the top.

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Yesterday I wrote to the Ministry of Education in Christchurch and will report back their response as a comment on this blog latter. It has become clear that the Ministry is satisfied that dishonesty and non compliance is an acceptable situation in the education sector and that bullying and incompetence can be swept under the carpet. We will go on researching but I have no faith in the Ministry’s ability to manage anything.

Dear Pauline,

I have struggled for over 2 years now to understand the inaction of the Ministry of Education regarding the issues at LPHS and the Ministry’s willingness to allow any resolution to drag out beyond what I would consider reasonable time frames.  I therefore would like answers to the following questions.

1. 1.       Is a publicly funded school allowed to ignore an Occupational Health and Safety complaint from a member of the public?  
2. 2.       Does the Ministry of Education with its policy of a “high trust model” take complaints of dishonesty seriously and implement more critical evaluations of information received from sources accused?
3. 3.       Is the School Trustees Association funded to protect the integrity of the education system or to protect the interests of individual board members from liability of their actions or inactions? And if it’s the latter who does protect the integrity of the system?
4. 4.       Who within the civil service is responsible for insuring that the requirements of the State Sector Act are met in education? I refer specifically to the to the “good faith” and “good employer”  obligations.
5. 5.       What is the Ministry of Education’s policy on workplace bullying and what procedures are in place to police and prevent it?
6. 6.       Given the situation at LPHS what credibility can be given to ERO reports on schools
7. 7.       What statistical information is collected on teacher competency procedures that could be relied on to identify rogue and unethical behaviour in schools?
8. 8.       What exactly is a reasonable timeframe?  2 Years?
9. 9.       What degree of incompetence is required on the part of a BOT or Principal to generate Minedu action?
10. 10.    What exactly is the Ministry of Education’s problem with paying out for disregarded sick leave?  I certainly am referring to the good faith requirements here.

I look forward to your prompt reply

Regards

Filed under: Back ground, Bullying, LPHS, Minedu, Minister, Questions  | | No Comments »

In the last few weeks I have been assured by the Ministry of Education that they had written to the BOT of Logan Park High School with some options for resolving the impasse one of which was an independent investigation of my claims. The board apparently met on the 14^th October to discuss this and after seeking advice. I assume from the School Trustees Assn (STA) this option has been declined. I find this fascinating, if there was nothing to hide it would have put the matter to rest and me firmly in my place.  Seems to me that the  current BOT has continued along the same path of the previous incumbents this is not surprising as the current chair Mr Alex King was the deputy chair on the previous BOT and chaired last years CAPNA committee (whose conclusions were dubious). The fact that this BOT seem unable to act in “Good Faith” and as a “Good Employer“ as required by the State Sector Act and from their correspondence think compliance with the OSH Act is optional.

Mr King has in the past accused me of being “Vexatious”  I don’t believe this describes me but I would state that I consider the BOT of LPHS along with its senior Management to be Incompetent time wasters, Dishonest, Unethical and completely lacking in any form of Integrity.  They have up until now had options but put their faith in the abilities of their Principal Joy (Jane) Johnson and her Deputy Roger Tobin to solve the problem and that was never going to work. They have had opportunities personally but have not taken them up I certainly expect that their lack of action should have ramifications in their personal and professional capacities and they should either now resign or be fired. Their lack of action on the bullying and dishonesty by their senior staff I see as endorsement and approval and a failure by the ministry to now act promptly would also amount to approval.

This is a school in it death throws and radical action is required to bring it back to life. The school has been instructed by the Ministry of Education of disestablish a further 4 Full Time Teacher positions this year.  Neither the Ministry or the Staff should trust this management team. Issues of conflict of interest are poorly managed in this dysfunctional school. There needs to be a public inquiry and that should be extended to include the STA and its role. One thing this blog has achieved it that regular correspondents with me have shown that LPHS is not an isolated incident these issues are rife within education.

The web page has now had over 1300 visitors and is gaining in popularity with many 1000’s of page views and a very high ranking on search engines.  I apologise to all the correspondents I have not replied to but the share volume on emails makes this quite a slow process.  I am specifically interested in this latest CAPNA round and anyone who feels they may be getting shafted please drop me a line

Filed under: Bullying, LPHS, Minedu  | | 1 Comment »

Unfortunately the earthquake in Christchurch has affected the research that backs the claims I make here but hopefully we will soon be back in action.  I still have considerable discomfort at the level of trust and discretion given to unqualified BOT’s and the general level of discretion allowed to principals without any real audit of their ethics or honesty. The idea that more discretion is being sought in the current collective agreement negotiations is frightening given that in 2 years the Ministry of Education has been unable to investigate the complaint that started this blog off.  Dishonesty is an issue in any organisation. The unwillingness of the BOT of LPHS to investigate the original complaint speaks volumes for the integrity of the “Tomorrows Schools” system. It seems that compliance with the SSC and OSH Act’s is optional in the education sector.

Filed under: LPHS, Minedu  |   Tagged under Logan Park High School, Publicly funded employer Abuse of Power | 1 Comment »

Discretion what exactly is it. The Ministry and the Education Act give an awful lot of this to Boards of Trustees (BOT) and Principals. To me discretion is the ability to make a discussion that is not likely to embarrass you in the future. To be fair and reasonable and show when you have power over the futures of others that you have a social conscience and a will for natural justice. On this basis I would list the past and current BOT of Logan Park High School (LPHS) as not fit to use discretion and their faith in the honesty and integrity of their Principal and chief advisor as badly misplaced. I met with the Ministry of Education yesterday and I, in good faith admit I was given a good hearing but it would take a lot more than an hour to cover the issues here. Reading the documents alone would take over a week. Anyway its been going on for two years now and I have little faith in the system but time will tell.  It’s the first time anyone from the Ministry of Education or LPHS has ever sat down with me so I will give them a chance and see where it goes.  But I for one would not be giving any more discretion to BOT’s or Principals until they show they can exercise it and that the Ministry of Education is able to monitor and control it.  Changes the Ministry wants to the collective agreement in this round would just hand more power to the bullies.

Filed under: Back ground, Bullying, LPHS, Minedu, Minister, PPTA  | | 1 Comment »

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.

Filed under: LPHS, Minedu, Minister  | | 1 Comment »

Recent correspondence with Logan Park High School would indicate that the new Board of Trustees is no better than the last. Perhaps this is because to many of the old BOT are still there certainly the new Chair was the deputy in the last board.  This is sad as some much better candidates came forward at the last election with much more to loose by way of reputation than the previous members. Discussions with a previous Board member have confirmed to me that the board is very much captured and controlled by the Principal Jane Johnson and in her absence her Deputy Roger Tobin. But back to the new BOT who are they:

Alex King (Chairperson)

Jane Johnson (Principal)

Ruth Barnett

Brian Derrett

Sarah Derrett

Caroline Rickerby

Han Verberne  (Staff Representative)

Noi Hudson (co-opted Member).

Luke Shield (Student Representative)

I’m sure that anyone with medical knowledge on the BOT isn’t aware the OSH component of my complaint resulted that fault was found and an improvement notice issued. This was based on the Original complaint that the board ignored. I understand that the Department of Labour (DOL) has quite a file on LPHS. They might like to get in touch with the DOL Doctor and get the real story of their school. But all this would in direct conflict with the ERO report. How could that be? I’ll move on to research the dishonesty aspects of my complaint.

I recently sent an official information request to the school detail below

To: The Board of Trustees,

This request is for all documents including BOT Minutes relating to the handling of my complaint 10.11.08 regarding “Bullying and Dishonesty” at LPHS. If you feel any documents are subject to “Legal Privilege”. Please identify these documents by Author, and Date and I will request the office of the Ombudsman’s to examine them. I also request copies of

The email sent to selected staff explaining the reason why a trespass notice was served on me along with its distribution list and identifying the Author/s.

All correspondence relating to an offer from the German Government to support the teaching of German at LPHS along with the LPHS’s reply early November 2009, any internal correspondence and the  Board Minutes of discussion and rejection of this offer. 

These requests are made pursuant Official Information Act 1982 the information can either be mailed to me at:

Rob Owen

I got a reply sort of declining my request as Alex King considered it Vexatious apparently I have made a number of unmeritorious complaints to the school in the last year.  Year right! Mr King. The DOL don’t agree and I will be taking this up with the Ombudsman you can be sure. But in the mean time just what exactly are you trying to hide? Looking pretty suspicious to me and for anyone at LPHS to talk about good faith, well that’s  a joke.  But I can assure you I’m a lot more than just trouble.

It amazes me the level of dishonesty and incompetence the successive BOT’s at LPHS are prepared to accept from their paid management.

Filed under: Back ground, LPHS, Questions  | | 4 Comments »

One actually has to ask what exactly is the purpose of the Ministry of Education and what do they do. In fact why under tomorrow’s schools do we even have a Secretary of Education or even a Minister, surely trusting the discretion of boards they have both become obsolete and funding them has become a waste of taxpayer recourses. Staff welfare issues are swept aside because the ministry isn’t the employer. Bit of a joke really, because its ministry policies that result in CAPNA round and the ministry provides the funding out of the public purse. Where are the politians well, they refer their mistakes to the ministry and pass back the ministries answers. Bit of a cop out I would say as the ministry blames the law and the politians accept what the ministry says. Who can examine and change the law? This is one that rests squarely in the laps of Ministers of Education through successive governments. They are well aware that tomorrows schools have failed and continue to blame teachers for it failure. Here’s another question if the Ministry isn’t an employer how come applications for Disregarded Sick leave (DSL) are referred to the ministry’s Industrial Relation’s Group and not a teachers’ welfare group. Why if it’s not the employer do the ministry need an industrial relations group other than for its internal industrial matters. How come the ministry, when they receive a complaint, dives out for a legal opinion and don’t launch an investigation and how come that legal opinion never seeks out the complainant to get to the real story. 

Because they don’t want to know they just want to avoid. The guidelines they create are not policed actually every thing they seem to do is a waste of millions of dollars of tax payer money.  The education act requires BOTs to be a “good Employer” and the ministry is responsible for administering the Act.  But there will be many teachers driven from their careers before the ministry ever performs its responsibilities.  We need a Minister prepared to force the issues and do her job the same applies to the secretary. The level of incompetence is amazing and it doesn’t rest with the classroom teachers. It’s in Karen Sewell’s lap  and just how do you get past all the apologists to send an email directly to her. Who knows I for one will send them to Anne Tolley delegating to her that responsibility and ask her to pass them on perhaps she knows a direct connection.\\just send it Karen Sewell C/o  anne.tolley@parliament.govt.nz Perhaps she knows how to get Mail to this over paid public servant.  Or maybe the Minister will get sick of it and demand her secretary become more available to the people who pay her wages. Or even better get somebody better for the role.

I have quite a bit of correspondence to support these views

Filed under: Back ground, Bullying, Minedu, Minister, Questions  |   Tagged under Bullied, Bullying of Teachers by Management and Boards (LPHS), Dunedin, Incompetence, Logan Park High School, Publicly funded employer Abuse of Power | 1 Comment »

The announcement by the Minister of Education Anne Tolley of planned Government/private sector partnerships in new school building and maintenance is a step in the right direction and I fully approve. Contracts should also be let for existing schools and upgrades.  Get skilled property managers in to manage the physical resources and free up education management time to manage education.  10 out of 10 for this one Minister. 

But lets take it a step further and get real managers into schools to manage the administration.  For too long many of the managers (Principals) in our schools have lacked the training and experience for the job. Why do the CEO’s of our schools need to have a history as a teacher? What does teaching have to do with HR management, budgets, Balance Sheets and regulatory compliance. I’m not saying that teachers shouldn’t be allowed to aspire to that role but I am saying they should get the necessary management qualifications and practical experience outside of the school system first. CEO’s need to hold high levels of management skills, qualifications and sound knowledge of the regulations affecting the education industry. Because in the modern world it is an industry not just a sector. BOT’s need quality advice to make good decisions.  The CEO could hold a fixed term position overlapping BOT elections by say 3 months allowing the incoming BOT to change direction or reaffirm. 

Our education system needs a flattened administration structure and a line drawn between the “Education Management” in the schools and the “Administrative and Regulatory Management”.  A Principal Teacher should be exactly that someone who can still teach and be a professional leader and has the respect of their colleagues. They could even be elected by the teachers and hold a fixed term.  Do we really need all the Deputy and Assistant Principals? wouldn’t a much flatter management structure serve better the needs of the students?

Filed under: Back ground, Minister, Questions  |   Tagged under New Zealand | 2 Comments »