Educating Ethos

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Bike Stand or Toaster?

It is more than a year since a report that Western Power had declared a chain gate at our school illegal because it was attached to a pole forming part of their electricity distribution network. At the time a spokesman for Western Power said they were sending a crew out to inspect the gate.

Instead, staff at the school removed part of the gate themselves, something they were unqualified and unauthorised to carry out. A year on and the remainder of the gate, a chain which proved too rusty to conveniently remove, is still attached to the pole, and still presenting a hazard.

The illegal chain has invited use as a convenient point to secure bicycles, despite a serviceable bike stand provided by the school only 20 metres away. It is hoped that a crew from Western Power will eventually attend and remove the illegal fitting before someone uses it as a toaster.

A similar stay pole securing a nearby pole caught fire following a pole top fire in December last year, because the stay wire did not have an insulator to isolate it from electricity which leaked from the network. The fire was caused by wires carrying 23,000 volts fell after the wooden bearer supporting them burned through, allowing high voltage power to travel across the stay wire to the school side of the road with sufficient current to set alight to the stay pole opposite.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Four by Four Syndrome

It is common knowledge that the suburban drivers of 4 wheel drive vehicles think they are bullet proof. What is less well known is that they think these cars make their passengers bullet proof as well.

This allows them to pull stunts like this driver, seen parked in the no-standing zone outside our school at approximately 8.45 this morning. Not content with ignoring the no standing zone active at that time, they stopped in the intersection of Haig and Withers, to drop their child for school.

If this driver is your parent, perhaps you could suggest some driving lessons, or a new bike, so you can take yourself to school in relative safety.

In the interests of public safety, the vehicle was a metallic silver Mitshubishi 4 wheel drive and the personalized number plate started with the letters LEE. If you are walking or driving near Bunbury Senior High School while the school zone is active, keep a sharp lookout for this vehicle, keep at a safe distance, and expect the unexpected. The driver may have an undiagnosed brain injury.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Police Blitz on School Speed Zones

Bunbury traffic Police have reported carrying out a blitz on school speed zones in the Bunbury area, and observed that most drivers comply with the speed restriction. However an independent survey of traffic through the school zone on Upper Esplanade last week indicated that 42% of northbound vehicles were traveling at more than 5km/hr over the limit while the zone was active. The main offenders were taxis, and commercial vehicles such as utilities and vans.

Adding to the hazard is the lack of centre road markings adjacent to the bus stop, which encourages south bound traffic negotiating buses to clash head on with northbound traffic. Police acknowledged that the blitz reported in the South West Times of March 16 had not included our school, and admitted the level of compliance indicated by the survey was unacceptable. However the position of the zone presents problems for Police because there is no suitable area to stop offending vehicles.

Meanwhile, there is still no word from the City of Bunbury of a commitment to provide footpaths to service the school pedestrian traffic. After more than 85 years in existence, the City Fathers are yet to gazette a pedestrian crossing on any of the roads surrounding Bunbury Senior High School. This remains a significant issue because students regularly leave the school to attend sporting activities at nearby facilities, and outside the times when the school speed zones are active.

Friday, October 14, 2005

School Expansion Makes Progress

Our school has taken another bold step on its program of expansion at the expense of its community. More than 30 years of adverse possession of road reserve has been consolidated for the exclusive use of the school with the erection of a permanent fence. The installation of the fence followed safety concerns about school signage erected on the road reserve, and in a manner which posed a hazard to pedestrian traffic.

City of Bunbury officers investigating a report that the fence and the sign trespassed into public land confirmed that the fence protruded more than two meters onto a road bounding the school, but could not give a more accurate assessment without a formal survey being carried out.

The erection of the fence was consistent with an unlawful barrier previously erected by the school to close off part of the road from public access by the use of pine bollards, and an illegal chain gate which had been attached to the Western Power electricity grid. At the time this was investigated by Western Power staff at the school had boasted that it had been in place for more than thirty years without causing injury.

The fencing contractor, when asked whether he had followed surveyed plans while erecting the fence said that he was only following marks painted on the ground by school staff, and of course the existing pine bollards. He viewed any trespass which might arise from the fence as a problem for the School and the Department of Education, since he was only following their instructions in good faith.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Look out Below

Despite the ongoing adverse safety record of our School, this reporter was shocked to see the manner in which two workmen were repairing tiles on the second story of the School this morning. The work involved securing tiles already disturbed or damaged during the recent tornado.

As the photos make obvious, there is a risk of tiles slipping off the roof, and therefore an obvious danger to anyone below. Note the students in the quadrangle by the flagpole. But despite this, the work was being conducted without benefit of a single barrier or notice to pedestrians approaching the main entrance to the School that the work was taking place overhead.

A tile falling from the height of the second story roof, a distance of more than 10 metres, would have sufficient energy to inflict fatal injury to anyone walking below.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Tuck Shop for Vermin

The Tuck Shop for local vermin is always
well stocked at our School.

The students at our school regularly win awards for their involvement in environmental activities, but they seem unable to persuade staff to follow their example. While the students are planting trees to protect the delicate coastal heath between the school and the Indian Ocean, staff are providing a smorgasbord for local vermin by regularly overloading the waste bin.

An Environmental Health Officer with the City of Bunbury explained that Council was powerless to act against the School in the matter because the relevant sections of the Health Act 1911 do not bind the Crown. "We can only appeal to their sense of civic duty in the interests of public health," she said.

And despite a tornado having hit Bunbury just a few weeks ago, there is no sign that staff at our school have any idea about securing materials that might become missiles in a high wind. This is despite the fact that a house immediately adacent to the school was almost completely destroyed by the recent twister, and the school itself lost tiles in the same event.

After passing the school, the recent tornado inflicted irreparable damage to the Catholic Church by lifting it from its foundations. A similar wind would have no difficulty picking up the palettes and lumber left lying about the school yard, and projecting them as potentially lethal missiles into adjacent dwellings.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Risk Management by Lottery

The idea that effective legislation can be drafted in plain English is a relatively new concept, and one which is viewed with great skepticism by some less enlightened members of the legal fraternity, who see no benefit to their industry in educating the public to have a good understanding of the law and their legal responsibilities. The Western Australian Government deserves to be applauded for developing clear, readily understood policy documents in plain English for many of its Departments, and for making them freely available on the internet.

Not only does this mode of publication conveniently inform the public, but it makes clear and accessible the duties, ethical standards and responsible conduct required of public servants employed in this jurisdiction. Administrators uncertain about a particular issue can, at the touch of a mouse, find and read the procedures and protocols relevant to a particular set of circumstances, allowing an informed decision to be made and instruction on a lawful course of action to be transmitted to their staff.

But at our School it seems that legislation and policy documentation might as well be written in Latin, since it has no discernable influence on the way the School Administration responds to issues of workplace safety, student safety, risk assessment or hazard management.

The other day a local resident and neighbour of our school noticed something which was inconsistent with his prior experience as a section manager in a Government Department. He observed that the School had installed a chain, attached at one end to a stay-pole of Western Power’s electrical distribution network, and at the other to a tree growing on the road reserve of the street bounding the School. His recollection was that such installations were illegal, and so brought his concerns to another member of the community group monitoring safety problems at the School. A phone call to Western Power confirmed the installation was unlawful and unauthorised, and curiously, Western Power suggested the neighbour bring the matter to the attention of the School, while it undertook to dispatch a work crew to investigate.

The School Principal was unavailable when the neighbour called the school, so contact was made instead with the District Office of the Department of Education and Training. Two weeks later the District Office advised that the letter reporting the unlawful installation had been passed to the School Principal, and that following an inspection of the installation it was intended to make some modification as an interim measure until a permanent fence and gate were installed. The letter did not say whether Western Power had served notice on the School to remove the illegal installation. The neighbour noticed that the chain was still in place, and was still being secured each afternoon by staff at the school, and that the serious hazard posed by the chain was being allowed to continue.

Puzzled by the failure of either the School or Western Power to act on the reported hazard posed by the illegal gate, and concerned that the school was still using the chain in the same fashion, the original informant made further enquiries. Western Power undertook to serve notice on the School immediately, but was unable to say when a crew would be able to attend to its removal, due to demand upon personnel for higher priority tasks, including a large number of pole-top fires following the first rains after a long and dusty dry spell. The District Office of the Department of Education and Training declared the matter the responsibility of the School Principal. The School said that the Principal was unavailable, but acknowledged that discussions about the gate had taken place. Neither the District Office or the School would acknowledge that the installation was unlawful, or that it was hazardous.

The decision by the School Administration to allow the hazard to persist following the report from the public was not due to a failure of risk assessment procedures at the School. In this circumstance risk assessment was obviated by prevailing law and regulations controlling use of Western Power’s distribution network. These regulations made the installation illegal and therefore all staff at the School had a duty under the Public Sector Code of Conduct to cease the unlawful conduct. An additional duty fell upon the Principal under Section 63 of the School Education Act 1999 to ensure that it was safely removed in the interests of student safety. The fact that the installation is not on the school grounds but on the road reserve immediately adjacent to the school does not absolve the school, but rather compounds its culpability by adding trespass to the list of unlawful conduct. The road reserve is under the control of the City Council, and the school’s decision to install an unlawful and hazardous installation on a public road also gives rise to a dangerous public nuisance. The same section of the School Education Act also charges School Principals with responsibility for “promoting co-operation with the community” which is not served by persistent misuse of public space around the school.

Then at 3.30pm in the afternoon during persistent light rain following a long period of dry weather, and following notice to our School from Western Power that the structure was both illegal and hazardous, a staff member was seen padlocking the chain in place according to the School’s established practice. The School could no longer be excused as acting in ignorance. It was choosing to flagrantly ignore the notice already served upon it, and blatantly ignoring not only its duty of care to the students and the public, but also to the staff member who was allowed to once more handle the chain and operate the gate, this time in wet weather, and in environmental conditions where failure of insulators and the potential for electrical arcing to ground was greater than normal. Worksafe was duly notified.

During a telephone conversation between the neighbour and a School staff member following the intervention by Western Power, a telling insight into the safety culture of the school was offered. On being asked why the school was still allowing the illegal installation to be used as a gate, the staff member explained that it was necessary to protect the school oval from trespassing vehicles prior to the School Carnival the following week. “Besides, we have been using that chain for more than thirty years, without incident.”

As long as a culture remains at the School which allows staff to imagine that they can interpret risks arising from hazards according to such perverse reasoning and complete ignorance of the laws of probability, preventable safety issues at the School will continue to arise, and a serious and entirely foreseeable accident is simply a matter of time, not a matter of luck.