Thanks to the help we received from the Human Rights Commission, and following that, from the Director of the Human Rights Tribunal, we have finally reached a settlement with the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School.

Through the mediation we, and the school, have arrived at a set of statements concerning the events leading up to the 8th of June 2009, when the school expelled all our children, using loopholes in Private School Law, which the Law Commission happened to simultaneously recommend closing. 

After those expulsions, a lot of effort was made by the school’s community to make the problem appear to be all about us, and to destroy our reputation, conveniently side-stepping the bullying issue which testimony shows has been going on at that school for decades.

For instance, on the 29th of June 2009, a meeting was held at the school for the parents of our eldest daughter’s class to discuss the events that led to our children’s expulsions. It was hosted by Mark Thornton and Susan Cole, our eldest daughter’s teacher. We were not invited to attend and only knew of the meeting and what was said at it, because other parents informed us.

During that meeting various slanderous claims were made including but not limited to:

-Our family is very unbalanced;

-The axe incident was all made up;

-Our eldest fabricates stories because we wouldn't listen to her otherwise;

-She asked to be bullied (no one seemed to notice the obvious contradiction with the previous statement).

On the 20th of September 2009 Mark Thornton stated to a curious parent:

“the school has investigated all incidents reported by this family and has found them to be without substance.”

Richard Lee, a parent, added his voice to other derogatory comments on the Aucklander article from the 15th of July 2010 in which he said:

“the real story here is about two thugs who want to tear down a cherished community asset because the school dared to stand up to their unsatisfactory and inappropriate demands.”

This is just a very small sample of what we’ve had to endure during these three and a half years.

Compare those smears with the statements the school eventually signed off on with Human Rights involvement:

1. Titirangi Rudolph Steiner School (TRSS) accepts that the Paris Garden’s eldest child’s accounts were honest and that her actions in reporting bullying were fully commensurate with the school policy which emphasises the importance of telling both teachers and parents.

2. The class was a mixed-age class of 17 boys and 5 girls. There were many boys in the class who were nearly two years older than the Paris Garden's daughter.

3. TRSS acknowledges that some children in the class displayed bullying behaviour.  

4. The Paris Garden's middle child was very happy in the kindergarten right up until her place was withdrawn in response to her parents’ actions. The middle child had been happy in the kindy for over a year with no problems whatsoever and was settled with her teacher and her friends.

5. The Paris Garden’s youngest daughter was happy in the play group and registered to begin nursery in 2010.

6. In retrospect, TRSS regrets not going through with the meeting scheduled for Monday 8 June 2009, and acknowledges that the Paris Gardens had invited a parent representative to that meeting who was knowledgeable about socially inclusive ways of addressing bullying.

7. TRSS acknowledges that Steve and Angel’s words and actions (behaviour) in continuing to try and address the issues of bullying with TRSS, as they were advised and encouraged to do in all conversations with all TRSS staff, arose out of their natural and dutiful concern as parents for the safety of their child and concern for the wellbeing of other children in the class.

It’s a fact that our settlement arose only because of our publications. Without them, we would never have come to the attention of the Human Rights Commission, without whose help the school would undoubtedly still be playing the “we’re much too important to talk to you” and “we haven’t done anything wrong” cards. Even with Human Rights involvement, on the 9th of May 2011 their response was still to refuse mediation, saying:

“The school doesn’t consider it has in any way breached the Human Rights Act. It feels strongly that it has conducted itself fairly and civilly with Ms Garden and Mr Paris regarding the enrolment of their daughters.” 

One of the good things about our settlement, is that it involves no confidentiality (gagging) clause whatsoever. Had we not settled in mediation but taken it to the Tribunal it is possible that there would have been suppression of the name of the school, whether we had won the case or not. So this is definitely a much better outcome since we are still free to let others know what happened here.

We hope this result can be of help to others, not just those experiencing similar problems at Steiner Schools worldwide, but certainly also at New Zealand private schools, still totally unregulated, as well as to anyone whose justified concerns about bullying are being ignored or demonised.

We want to encourage others not to listen to those who tell you to either publish or seek due process. We now believe, through this experience, that doing both simultaneously can be pretty effective, even if it does incur aggressive smearing.

Our settlement also shows clearly to all that we preferred to mediate rather than to litigate, as we have tried to do since the very beginning, and the statements we have agreed with the school also demonstrate that the vendetta that has been mounted against our family, was simply due to our supporting our daughter in asking them to make good with regard to their own policy on bullying.

The statements show that the school knows perfectly well that we have a legal duty to protect our children from bullying, including emotional bullying as well as physical assault. Also that we were deceived by the school into believing that they intended to deal with the bullying, and that we were encouraged in that belief by all the staff.

Obviously these statements do not go as far as to accept liability, and that’s the value to the school of settling in mediation, but we as a family, and that includes the children, feel that they do show clearly that we did absolutely nothing wrong, but that the school acted to protect the bullying at all times. Send your children there at their peril.

The process of pursuing this matter, has raised many further questions specifically about Steiner and bullying which we shall return to elsewhere. 

The school has also agreed a modest payment of NZ$9,000 to our children. Let’s be very clear that this in no way reflects what it has cost us, even just financially, to follow this situation through. But we always said it was not about the money, and we meant it; neither could money possibly undo the damage that was done.

So that’s it. We will be tidying up this site, and adding testimonials from other families in due course, so that people can see how long this school has been treating others in this high-handed manner. We will not take this site down, nor have we been asked to. 

We feel that people should know, not only that the school expelled bullied children but that they made us work for a full three and a half years to get them to admit it.

Not only does the result prove that what we’ve said consistently about the bullying was true, our daughter followed school policy and yet the school failed in its promises to take the bullying seriously.

The smears and judgements we suffered all turn out to be projections, and that matters because this is not some intellectual exercise, but a situation that damaged our family, and we are sharing it only because we think it’s useful.  

Of course we hope the school will examine their shocking attitude to bullying problems that arise, but feel no confidence whatsoever that they will do so.

Without breaching the confidentiality of the mediation process, we can, and feel it’s important to, disclose that the school claimed poverty when it came to shelling out to make this situation go away. Not only that, but even having agreed to settle and pay, they actually went as far as to claim that they wouldn’t be able to pay until March when... wait for it... they get their Government grant.

Yes that’s right, this Steiner school, who proudly threw out the children on the basis that as a totally independent private school, they could do whatever they like, then said they couldn’t pay until the Government bailed them out with a hand-out. Supreme irony? We think so. 

So why doesn’t the school have enough money, not just to pay their Human Rights abuses fines, but even to pay all their teachers? Why was there a teacher working for nothing up there during the last school year?

Here’s our advice. Stop shooting the messenger and run a better school.

Steve Paris & Angel Garden

Addendum (26 January 2013):

Here’s a link to a scanned copy of the original signed statements. The only parts removed are our daughters’ names and the technical details of the agreed payment.