Heather Roy, Minister for Special Education said on the 31st of May 2010 at a speech to the Independent Schools of New Zealand Board Chairs' Seminar,

“A Board of Trustees is an essential part of every school.  It provides leadership, strategic direction and an important link between parents, staff and students.”

What an important body of people, especially in such an unregulated sector!

We are watching with interest the figures for people reading our last posting, and it has already been read by people in several countries.....and the figures this morning just keep on going up and up.

Although we feel that some readers may find it hard to focus on the facts, given the emotional response that parents have to our continued search for justice anyway, we would like to point out the following.

It appears that right thinking people, on understanding why we are protesting, openly admit that “if it was true”, then our search for justice is correct.  Paddy Delaney, the Trustee pictured above is one such.

So then the question arises “is it true?”  Is it true that our children were thrown out from the school as a response to our flagging up that they were not following their own school policy as far as bullying is concerned?

If the rightness or wrongness of our protest depends on these facts, then obviously it is paramount to discover and prove their veracity by whatever means are available.  Who’s responsibility should it be to make sure of the truth, as it impacts on the health and safety of children at the school?

 Well, we don’t even have to refer to statute to find out, because according to Mark Thornton in his letter to us of 28th May 2009,

“The only legal entity is the Trust - it is formed under New Zealand law as a tax-exempt charity.  The Trustees carry the legal responsibility for the actions of the Trust and must not be negligent in their attention to their duties as Trustees.”

Oh really?  Then why was our family axed from the school just hours before we were due to meet with them, to try and sort out the problems?  They even say they were still expecting to meet with us on that day, as Desmond Burdon, Trustee wrote to us, 

“The Trust, and I, had no say or action in the out come of CoT  decision.  We had a meeting with Mark on Thurs eve. and were set to"sit in"on the proposed meeting with you on Mon at 3:00 pm.  Mark did call me on Fri. Afternoon to tell me that the CoT had made a final decision, then followed the letter, which I only saw late this afternoon. (Sat.)  I cannot take "sides" on this terrible situation, and hope you will understand my position.”

Well actually, no, Desmond, we don’t.  You really weren’t legally in a position to ask us to understand your inability to “take sides”, especially in view of Mark Thornton’s definition of your legal responsibility in his own words,  in the letter of 28th May 2009, such that Trustees

“must obtain sufficient information to be satisfied that the workings and dealings of the school do not expose the school to clear legal risk or monetary loss....... this is a matter of what might reasonably be expected.”

Considering also that Mark Thornton had written to us on 27th May 2009,

“it might well be that by including someone from the Trust in our meeting we might make strides towards a shared picture which would represent something worth working towards.”

It must have been reasonably expected that the Trustees would have insisted on fulfilling that contractual expectation at the very least!

Instead our children were thrown out just before it could take place....and one of the Trustees asked us to understand that they couldn’t “take sides”.  Poor Trustees, aw.

In reality, of course, by not insisting that we have the meeting anyway, they have opened themselves up to the possibility that they have allowed a foreseeable hazard to cause harm to our children in the actual act of allowing Mr Mark Thornton to expel them at all, by breaking a contract that he had with all of us, by failing to follow school procedures on exclusions, by failing to give any kind of warning, etc., etc.,  with no school procedures whatsoever, no warning, nothing.

That is, of course, quite separate to their not having made sure that foreseeable hazards did not cause harm in the form of allowing children to assault and hurt one another.  

So how are the Trustees comporting themselves about these events these days?  And where does Paddy Delaney, Founding Director of RealStew, and Trustee of the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School stand on the issue of “truth” now?

We have asked Paddy for information in response to our becoming aware of comments that he wrote by email to a journalist who enquired about the Titirangi Three. 

Mr Delaney’s comments to this journalist, were in full knowledge that they were for possible publication in the UK.

Below is an excerpt of his email:

“I had limited involvement with the family prior to them being asked to leave but I was requested (after the event) to meet with the Angel and Steve which I did at my house. Pursuant to this meeting I was given access to certain documents and correspondence and it was then that I expressed my opinion that I felt the matter could (not should) have been dealt with differently.   Subsequent to this I met with Mark and my fellow trustees and other COT members and was made privy to more information that Steve & Angel had not disclosed to me (in the course of our meeting and from correspondence) that concerned me AND a sequence of events then started to occur after they had been asked to leave that made it more untenable to consider that Steve & Angel would be welcome back in the school.  

These post events had the effect of giving credence to the school having made the right decision to ask them to leave the school.”

As far as he told us, Paddy Delaney is a qualified lawyer as well as a Trustee.  His comments bring up so many difficult questions, it’s hard to know where to start.  The fact is that we had no involvement whatsoever with him prior to our kids being kicked out, and we didn’t even know who he was.  If he is referring to letters that we wrote to the Trustees asking them to step in, as the legal guardians of the integrity of the school, then he will have to, at the same time, acknowledge that he manifestly failed in that duty, because he did not remove any of the foreseeable hazards that have caused harm to our children.

Never mind that though, what are people going to make of the fact that a professional lawman can propose that events that took place after an expulsion should be used as a justification for having expelled people in the first place?

And what is this handy “information” that it was his legal duty to be properly aware of that he only apparently found out over a month after the illegal expulsions?  Does Paddy not realise that admitting that he did not have all the information implicates no-one more than himself?  We have asked him to tell us what this information is and are awaiting his reply.

Paddy Delaney is from South Africa.  He talked to us of the Truth and Reconciliation processes he had witnessed.  Yet, we wonder how many times under Apartheid people were found guilty of ridiculous things on the basis of “post-actions”, and literally disappeared.  Perhaps Paddy thought he was above such self-serving hypocrisy and prejudice, until he found himself one day selling his integrity down the river to protect a school’s abuse of three small children.

I’d like to see any of the Trustees try and avoid their Liability with such an argument in court!

What it adds up to is this: “We’ll expel the kids and if the parents make a fuss, this’ll prove that we did the right thing”, or what about “stick a pin in her, if she bleeds, that proves she’s a witch”? 

This kind of entrenched institutional bullying is apparently so normal, nobody even notices, and among the “community”, self-interest seems to render people blind to injustice. As for the irony of using the name of Rudolf Steiner as justification for such acts of violence towards children.......it’s unbelievable. 

Perhaps the Trustees need to research further into Steiner’s own philosophy about these matters, as he noted (in a lecture in Dornach in 1916) that he had long chosen for his motto Goethe’s statement that ‘Wisdom lies solely in truth’.

In reality, of course, these statements of Mr Delaney’s simply illustrate the lack of any justification whatsoever for actually expelling the children in the first place!   Otherwise, wouldn’t he just clearly say, “the parents did this or that”? 

Of course he would!

When Paddy and Sean Gribben invited us to a ‘secret’ meeting around this time last year, they had no problem admitting that they didn’t even know that our children were for the chop until after they had been served the expulsions!  This is in direct contradiction to what Mark Thornton will say about it.  The fact that it doesn’t add up apparently doesn’t matter to anyone at the school.

When this discrepancy became obvious during the secret meeting, instead of realising the awful implications given their legal responsibility, the two Trustees actually said, “it doesn’t matter, it’s happened now”.  That was the sum total of their ownership of their responsibility towards our children.  What a sterling example of them exercising their legal duty to make sure hazards don’t befall people on school premises.  They also both clearly admitted that none of the sequence of events that had befallen our children were at all in tune with Steiner Philosophy, but they didn’t have the courage of their convictions.  They must be so proud.

If the Trustees’ inefficient fuddling didn’t cause damage to the kids they’re supposed to be protecting, it might even be funny - like an episode of the Goon Show!  After all, Trustee Desmond Burdon, did also tell us last year that the school was basically “A Mickey Mouse” operation!

The sadder truth is that such inefficiency, especially in something claiming to be a school, can and does result in unconscionable negligence towards some children, apparently for the sake of others.

Intentionally cruel, or just bungling, the actions of the school against the children, have not been answered to.  The word “school” and the word “Trustees” are synonymous in this respect.  That’s why all those Boards were wining and dining with Heather Roy, Minister with responsibility for the Private Schools Amendment Bill 2, approaching Select Committee sometime soon......

Heather Roy is quite right on this point.  It is, of course, the Trustees whose sense of conscience and responsibility should protect the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School from such scandal. 

What a Liability!

NB

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