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Before we get around to making another video to explore what has happened to us at the Titirangi Steiner School, we need to look at a lot more information.

We've started to research the legality of the school's actions, both in the light of laws that apply to the school as a private business, and in regard to their own stated rules and procedures.

Obviously the legality is complicated by the private nature of the institution and all those protective sections under the Education Act don't apply.  This is a head-scratcher to all the agencies whose advice we are seeking on the matter.  We will persevere however, and hope to eventually be able to provide an accurate picture of your actual rights in this legally complicated situation.  Not interested in knowing that?  Please ask yourselves why.

Under the Education Act, there are so many protections to stop children being treated in this way.  Children's rights to be at the school, to be safe from intentional harm at the school, are all enshrined in law.

At a private school, none of that applies.  Sure the Kindy receives funding from the Ministry and the Ministry can enquire about why they have thrown out a 5 year old who has never had any problem, and about whom there has never been any complaint.  But in the end it comes down to management decisions.

Ok, you may say, well why don't you take your kids to a school where they have so many rights, if it's important to you... (I don't mean to put such crass words in your mouths, but really, some people have become a little hysterical of late).

Well that's the point isn't it.  What are we to do if we want our kids to benefit from the curriculum of the Steiner School, but we still want to be able to depend on their human rights being respected?  Who would ever have thought that it would be necessary to ask such a question.  It's an outrage to have to even type that in 2009.

We would like to ask all parents and staff at the school to take a deep breath and really think about the implications of that question.  Sure, lots of people are really angry with us, for not taking this ridiculous attack on our family lyingdown.  But why should anyone be surprised.  If you are going to pick on people, you need to be ready for what might happen next.  When I was a self-defence teacher it was put like this “If you take a knife into a fight, you must be prepared for it to be used against you”.  In aikido it would be put more like “why do you want to run onto this fist?”

OK, let's admit that our actions have been fairly dramatic, but unreasonable given the circumstances?  We don't think so.  We’re pretty jumpy when our kids are attacked.  Given that, and bearing in mind the boredom and repetition factors, of constantly emailing, let alone the distress of seeing your child come home bruised and enervated every single day, we were pretty controlled for a really long time.We also followed school procedures to the best of our abilities, whilst trying hard to keep our child safe.   Why did we do it?  Why didn't we just withdraw our kids and take them to Woodlands Park "a lovely little school" apparently?

Because we know that actually our kids HAVE got rights.  And we will find out what they are, and we will fight for them.  Because we didn't want to leave.  Because this is a free and democratic country where women won suffrage first on the whole planet.  Because we don't think it's unreasonable to ask any institution to take responsibility for it's own systems, or to change them where obvious contradictions cause actual harm to children.  We don't, and neither does the law.

More than that, because the school kept assuring and reassuring us that they wanted exactly the same thing as we did, for our daughter to be able to attend the school safely, without danger to her person, without being persecuted, ridiculed, belittled.  So many times they said this.  It never happened.

As far as the teacher is concerned, we believed it absolutely, because we could see the level of commitment she had.  Unfortunately we also saw that it was not always possible for her to be in the controlling seat!  Management was a bit of a different story.  Mark Thornton did not follow school procedures in as much as he interfered in the arrangements that we made with the teacher to keep Our Eldest Child safe, over-ruling arrangements that had been made with her regarding play-group patrol, and telling us to come to him in the first instance.  

As the legal matter will come down to contracts  made between us and the school, we need to look to their own stated rules and procedures to find answers.

Leaving aside the glaring fact that the school and us had 'contracted' to meet on the afternoon of Monday 8th June, and that they have not given any reason to have replaced that contract with the letter 'asking' us to leave, 

Let's have a look at the parents handbook:-

A Child's Living Environment

p8

"It is important, therefore, that parents speak directly with teachers about any issues that may be affection their child's well-being."

Well, we tried to do this, and continued past the point where it was just too exasperating for her, and she wanted me to take it to a class meeting (that old confront the other parent thing).

but the handbook also says this:-

The School Day

p6:

"The school takes responsibility for children between 8.20am and 3.20pm."

That means that the things that take place during that time are the responsibility of the school. There it is, in black and white folks.   It is outrageous for them to try and pass it off onto parents, to sort out 'incidents' when they weren't there and by the school's own admission aren't responsible for what happens during that time.

Remember, in law, children have a right to safety from attack.  If that is not the case in the school, then they are responsible for that.  This is so important because it is a clear example of them not executing their own responsibilities.

Let's be really clear about this.  If they are responsible for the kids and they have a philosophy that excluding kids (even for very violent behaviour) is a 'violence' in itself  (Judith Cunningham - big joke then about doing that to Our Eldest Child, eh Judith), then the problem of what to do about children who hurt others is a problem that is in urgent need of a fix.  Otherwise the contradiction in not wanting to exclude boys who bully and harass,  will lead to exactly the sort of problem that has arisen here.  That other children will get hurt, because bullying needs bullyees.   Then the school can't actually achieve the goal they kept assuring us of, to keep our daughter safe.  Moreover, the inability of the school to achieve this goal is actually built in to the system!

That is not the fault of any of the parents, except that, having seen it, we have a responsibility to change it, because the human rights of children is all of our responsibility.    It is an example of a philosophy not being explored in enough detail to make sure it is applicable.  The fact that people in 'other classes' have managed to sort problems out by the parents getting together, does not, a priori, mean that that will be possible in all cases and there is no good reason why it should.  Also, although that might be desirable, as a fall-back position it does not safe-guard anything.

Further, given the reality that sometimes cases will transpire where, over time, that mechanism doesn't or hasn't worked, the school not having assimilated it's own experience into a workable system PUTS CHILDREN AT RISK.

They have simply shown themselves unable, at the moment, to accept this and to responsibly move to change the situation - preferring to shoot the messenger.

That is a mistake, but it is a costly one.  Our daughter is suffering because of it and we have appealed to all those who look at this site to take up that challenge and protest that it is an injustice - causing no little measure of outrage!

If you don't do this, you will be sending your kids to a school that can act like this towards you and your kids.  The fact that they haven't - doesn't mean that they won't.  Can you confidently predict that this will never ever be a problem for you?  To the extent that you don't actually need to know that your kids' right are protected in law in case something terrible, or unexpected happens?

In that case, whilst admiring your self-confidence, I can observe that you must assume that all this is down to us.  We were the ones who failed to sort out the situation for our daughter, we failed where you will never fail.

Let's look at the book again.

Arrival in the Morning

p7:

"It is vital that the Class Teachers are kept informed of the many and varied aspects of the wellbeing of the children in their care."

"You may also wish to discuss any problems with you child's class teacher directly."

That this point has been made three times in the book explains our own actions. We did follow school procedure by continuing to inform the school of all the dangerous and harmful incidents that were brought to our attention, both by our child about herself and other children, and by other children about themselves, and about the real and detrimental effects it was having on our little girl.

When the school's own system imploded over this, because, we believe, the system is not functional therefore the teacher couldn't personally sort out the contradiction in exclusion being seen as 'violent', but hitting, kicking, punching, poking etc., being seen as ‘boisterousness’, the feeling we got was that our feedback and reported incidents were 'too much' for the school, but, still following procedure, we continued to inform the teacher and management by email.  

In their replies there is not one suggestion that this is the wrong thing to do, will lead to any problem, such as suddenly finding all our kids expelled.  

Neither, importantly is there any suggestion whatsoever that any of the things we brought up did not actually happen, except one.  There was one incident where a mistake occurred, that was my fault because I thought that the boy concerned was actually someone else who’s mum had said he was going to try out at the school.  It was a mistake.  Suzanne and Judith brought this to our attention and we discussed it also with the parents.  I mention this because it is the only instance where any incident has been questioned.  This proves that the school questioned incidents cited by us that they believed not to be real or true.  They never questioned any other incident.

We make this point because we are fairly sure that this will now become one of the directions the school will move in.  The "meeting about Angel and Steve" held last night was not for no reason and the school has, really, no other possible direction to go in since our actions prior to being booted out were entirely reasonable, and in line with school policies.  We shall soon find out - but we suspect further skullduggery. 

Let me be extremely clear here that if things move in this direction, and suggestions are made about our daughter, which is the only way shifting things in this direction can be achieved, by making it look as if it was her causing the problems, then we shall move immediately to her defence by whatever non-violent means available to us.

Such calumny against a person described by her teacher as a "sensitive" child, on behalf of a Steiner Community will not be allowed to pass.  Our daughter will know that her parents will protect her.  When she grows up she will know that we did.  That is our duty and we have already shown how seriously we take it.  We will not shrink from this no matter how hysterical people who appear not to understand the democratic principle become.

People, it is not democratic to treat people in this way.  You may be telling yourself that it's not that serious, or that it's only about a child in a school.  (Ours not yours.) Goodness we can feel the desire that we should shut up and go away and we have to burn a lot of sage!  But guess what folks.  We aren't going anywhere.  We are going to keep pointing out that the principle of free speech has been severely compromised right here in West Auckland and that our daughter has materially suffered as a result, and now so have her sisters.  We have already demonstrated that she has suffered physically, and will continue to show how the current and possible future actions of the school effect her mentally and emotionally as well.

The longer it goes on, the louder we will have to get, to stop this fading away, as so many others have had to do.  Consequences for the school community of the necessity of this, are not such a high priority for us as protecting our daughter from human rights abuses and defending her from calumny.

Those of you whose approach to us has been of the 'we've given up a lot and don't want our school destroyed you utter bastards' brigade will probably most easily be able to understand our outrage at the loss of this alternative school community for our family, because you have felt it towards us.  It's really horrible if people try to destroy your child's life at the school isn't it?  Especially when you've just bought a house in the area to commit to the school! Gosh, if only they had workable systems to keep children safe, this would never have happened.

We are not the agents of this problem.  We are the messengers.  We are trying to get these points across:  that the school needs proper parental representation, that it needs to deal with the contradictions in it's stated aims not to exclude bullyers and to keep children safe.  Duh.

We did not let the complacency of the school over it's unworkable systems deter us from our duty of care towards our children .  We did not accept that, and we will not accept a stitch-up job by the whole community towards us, our children and towards other vulnerable children who are all aware that they are being bullied and that it's actually pointless telling, because nothing is done to actually stop it.

What a crock.

Sorry to go on so long, it’s pretty long winded writing it all down isn’t it.  Probably best if we get back to making videos soon - easier to get the information over. :-)