Testimonial From the 2010s

I want to start with why we decided to go to the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School.

My son had been in a local state school, Kaurilands Primary School in Titirangi, before and had suffered greatly from bullying. Along with another boy, my son was physically attacked and had his 2 front teeth knocked out of his mouth. The local dentist who fixed his teeth was so angry that he called the police as he considered it a serious assault.  My son also suffered from more insidious forms of bullying over the years, like children standing in a corner, looking at him and giggling - that's just damaging for a kid. Kaurilands Primary School didn't really deal with it. My son ended up hiding in the toilet during the lunch hour, flushing the toilet so no one would hear him cry. He used to tell me how much he loved wearing hoodies because he could wear them no one would know he was crying.

So even though there was a change in Principal, and the new Principal who was actually very tough on bullying, we felt it was better for him to have a clean break somewhere else. This was based on advice from experts, counsellors and psychologists and you've just got to do it and hope you're making the right decision.

So we decided to go to Rudolf Steiner. We looked at other state schools and apart from being smaller; we thought that maybe the Steiner philosophy might be just right for him. So we enrolled out there and my son came into Susanne Cole's class.

Because of what happened to us at the other school, I made it very clear that we're looking for good communication and good school policies and procedures. As we were about to spent thousands of dollars to go to this RS school  we needed to make sure we made the right decision and there were people who would talk the truth.

I went through quite a bit with Susanne about the bullying issues, and RS school procedures and rules.  She and Mark Thornton assured me that they did not have any bullying issues at the school.

So he started in October 2009 and we'd been barely at the school for a couple of weeks when we saw some people protesting outside the school one evening. My husband asked Susanne what it was about and she said that it was just some parents were a bit upset at the school and were causing trouble but would not give details or explain anything to us. We didn't really think much of it at the time.

Very quickly after that my son came home saying "Mum, there's a group of boys in my class and when we are in the playground…", so I went into the school and demanded to know what was going on. Susanne told me that yes, there were some boisterous boys and that she'd have a talk to them. I told her that I wanted to patrol the school at break times and she gave me a horrified look. I ask her what the problem was with that.  At the previous school there was maybe one teacher for 300 to 400 kids and she wasn't really letting me know how many teachers patrolled at lunchtime. She said that they don't let people patrol. I said I don't care, I need to know that you're addressing this. She reassured me that everything would be OK.

My son kept coming home upset. We had a contract with him “communication is the key to success” and that you've got to talk to your mum and dad - that's what we’re here to help you and protect you. He kept telling us that these boys called him "dumb", "stupid", closed a desk lid on his hands, told him that he's an idiot, slow, stuff he didn't even have to deal with that the other school. During the lunch breaks he was subjected to more gang bullying by those several boys from his class.

Susanne turned round one day and said to me "I've done everything I can. I've talked to these boys but they continue to do it. I don't know what to do - it's the best I can do". I said maybe they needed to have a time out or something. She didn't think that was funny. These boys would say "Yes" to her face but laugh at my son's face at the same time with that smirky smile. It was obviously good enough for the teacher, but it wasn't meeting my son's needs.

I did try to deal with Mark Thornton who is in charge of the school and one of the school trustees when Susanne wouldn’t deal with me. I noticed and my eldest daughter used to say to me "Mum that man looks at you funny and every time you look at him, he quickly looks away and walks away". It was clear to me that I was being avoided. Anytime I ask to speak with Mark, he was never at the school or not available. Not a great feeling when the school manager refuses to front up and sort problems out.

Susanne then said that she wanted me to phone and talk to the parents of those boys directly. I couldn't believe that. “You expect me to call these people up… I've only been at this school for only a month and a half and you want me to work it out with people I didn't even know?” She wasn't kidding and I was flabbergasted and very angry.

We were at our wit's end. School was finishing in 4 weeks and we didn't know what to do. Our son's psychologist told us that a friend of his was going to be working at the school next year as a teacher.  Since we learned that Susanne had submitted her resignation, maybe we thought this guy, (Dirk Judson) would be our son's teacher.

Susanne didn't actually leave though, she's still on staff and relieves and does other bit and pieces at the school.  I was angry with her. I felt she didn't take me seriously and was very vague at knowing what to do. But since a new teacher was coming, we decided to come back after the Christmas break for the New Year.

My son did get the new teacher Dirk Judson, and after having a meeting with him we felt ok to continue on. But nothing's really changed: I would pick him up from school most days and he was in absolute tears, he would say to me, "get the hell out of here mum", which is not a word he usually uses. I said "what's going on" and he said "I'm just sick of it. The boys are all mean to me." One of the boys punched him in the stomach one day, and when I tried to get an answer they would say they would get back to me. I would never get a straight answer as to what was being done.

Dirk Judson did eventually have a Rudolf Steiner psychologist from Hawke's Bay come into the school. I guess things just got out of hand and too many people complained so they called him up and he stayed in the classroom all week and looked at the kids and how they were responding.  He told us our son's very sensitive and that sometimes anyone that says anything to them can feel like bullying so that whole balance isn't quite right. That's what he said to us, among other things.

I asked Dirk, our son's new teacher what he thought was bullying. Would he consider whispering about someone bullying? "No, that's a bit out there" he said. What about when playing tag, my son would always be "it", as soon as he tagged someone, he'd be tagged back, would he consider that bullying? "No, that's a bit out there". The schools view of bullying is only the physical - kicking and punching.

Unfortunately for us, there was another incident when I lost it at the school. We had an incident earlier this year when my son fell on the gravel stone parking lot and took the whole skin off his kneecap.  He went to Sharon, (the secretary & first aid person), crying. She told me that it was really dirty and full on stones and pebbles and she tried to fix it but he was crying so much that she just put a band aid on it. She didn't clean the wound or anything. She didn't even call me. I only found out when I came to pick him up at 3pm. I immediately realised how bad the situation was as the wound had already started to congeal with all the dirt and pebbles in it. I quickly took him home and tried to clean his knee but I knew I needed to take him to hospital.

I rushed him up to the local medical clinic and the doctor immediately got two nurses in for 2 hours in surgery trying to get out every little stone and also gave him a tetanus shot. The doctor actually got very angry with me because he couldn't understand why the school didn't call me. He was angry in the way "what kind of school is this?"

My doctor was also angry because he had other patients and both his nurses were being used for 2 hours to deal with my son. The next day, I called Sharon and read her the riot act. “I'm 5 minutes away, I’ve got a mobile, why didn't you call me?” And she said "Oh, I'm really sorry, he was in so much pain and crying I just thought it was too painful for him so I just put a band aid on him". I told her my doctor would be writing a report to the school, that it was neglectful in not dealing with this injury.

The school did take responsibility for that, but that's just not good enough. As an ex-registered pediatric trained nurse, I’m so furious that any school can get away with this sort of lack of medical care and not be held accountable for it.

There were a few other issues with the school, like no one tells you how the school operates. I wanted to let them know of my son's situation, not just to his class but to the other school teachers - we're not making a big deal, we just don't want him to be bullied out here.

There's a bunch of people out there in management, I don't know who they think they are, maybe they've been at the school so long that there's some sort of hierarchy or are a law into themselves. Who is policing the police out there?

My key points in this matter are:

We just wanted to be treated equally.

When another group of people think they can treat another group of people in a different way with different rules and then ostracizes for speaking out, I call that discrimination.

When you try to sort out the issues of what the problems are and try to get at least some sort of dialogue going, and the school refuses to talk to you, does not answer you letters, emails and are totally unavailable to resolve the problems, I call that discrimination.

I felt I was intimidated, by being looked at differently, my car in the parking lot always seem to be blocked in after arriving back to my car, and I seem not to received school notices when others would get them, I call that discrimination.

When you walk into the school and get dirty looks from other school parents, teachers and people you don’t even know, and you know that you’re not talking to these people yourself, then I call that discrimination.

If this is not discrimination then I call it bullying which now I believe is illegal in schools and there is a code of conduct which is supposed to be followed and enforced.

NOTE:

It is to be noted that my son is back in the state school system and attending the local intermediate school. They have a strong code of conduct against bullying and don’t tolerate it. My son has had no problems at all and is a very very happy boy.

We had no problems with Dirk Judson who was my son’s new teacher. We believe he truly tried his best and seem to be the one of the few teachers who had no agenda and simply was there to teach the children in the true RS way.

My problem is with the people/teachers and families that operated the school.