Principal Bewails Undisciplined Staff
The public could be forgiven for thinking that there are two Senior High Schools which include the name of Bunbury in their title. One is described in the corporate literature of the WA Education Department as a model school with "a consultative mode of decision-making... to ensure the needs of the school are addressed." The other is the one Principal Paddy Guthrie has to deal with day to day, where teaching staff act unilaterally and without authorisation to introduce more than 2000 metres of contaminated building waste into the school, on the pretext of enlarging the sports oval.In an email dated November 19, 2002 addressed to local residents concerned about the asbestos contamination Principal Guthrie commented, "If I could control my colleagues as effectively (sic) I can work with many of our kids, it would not have happened."
The email acknowledges that the School had been put on notice by City of Bunbury Engineers regarding the tresspass of the building waste onto Council land, but then goes on to say that the question of School boundaries is still in dispute, several months after the event.
"There is some dispute over this however, ...as to exactly where our boundaries lie" reports Principal Paddy Guthrie's email. So not only did the School fail to check the boundaries before earthworks commenced, but when the unlawful conduct was challenged by local authorities, some staff preferred to enter into a belated and futile dispute rather than admit the error which had already arisen directly from gross omissions and neglect of duty by at least one member of staff.
This is not the conduct of a responsible corporate citizen, much less a standard of conduct suitable for a School providing care to a thousand students. The boundaries should have been checked so that clear instructions could be given to the earthmoving contractor about where to locate the material. The direct consequence to the tax payer from this so far has been the cost of more than $100,000 in remedial earthworks.
In a letter to Giacci Brothers, the contractors who introduced the material to the School, Mr Guthrie is unequivocal about his position on the matter, and the fact that the dumping was unauthorised. "Earlier this year a member of my teaching staff invited someone from your company to deposit some fill on the south-western boundary of Bunbury Senior High School. His action was taken unilaterally and he was not authorized to make this invitation. At no stage either at the time or subsequently, was my authority sought to carry out this activity and nor was Council approval obtained."
Thanks to this clear and forthright description of events provided by Mr Guthrie early in this debacle, later attempts by the Minister's Office to fog over the gross misconduct by staff which led to the dumping also becomes apparent. But the question remains why, if no authority was given for the dumping, did the Department not simply instruct Giaccis to remove their rubbish from the School. Without lawful authority to dump the waste on the School grounds their conduct was unlawful, and there are relatively straightforward remedies at Common Law for such tresspass. If Giacci's failed to provide a remedy, presumably the Department could have exercised their own right to abate the nuisance and then billed Giaccis for the cost. Instead, as Mr Guthrie's correspondence reveals, the school chose to pay Giaccis to clean up the mess they had unlawfully caused by failing to obtain formal approval before commencing the waste dumping at the School.
What makes the question of delegated authority more disturbing in this case is that it happened at a School, where authority is specifically reserved to the Principal by the Schools Education Act 1996, yet despite this legislative basis for a clear vesting of authority, a hazard arose simply because someone without authority persuaded someone else to simply dump 200 truck loads of building waste into the School grounds. What could have led to such a bizarre and incredible outcome when the Act itself is so clear and unequivocal about how authority within Schools is to be delegated? Did the staff member concerned misrepresent their authority to Giaccis, perhaps by claiming to be Acting Principal? If so, we must add a breach of section 87 of the Criminal Code to the list of staff misdemeanors in this incident.
Whatever the actual reason, the result was the introduction of several dangerous and unacceptable hazards to the School, which should never have happened, and would not have happend had Mr Guthrie's authority as Principal been respected, and supported by the full weight of the Department of Education.
posted by kwoll @ 1:29 PM
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