I can’t say I have ever seen this but it appears the PPTA has apologised to Hekia for suggesting the Minister got information about teachers through unauthorised access of databases. Turns out, the Minister (nor her staff) didn’t.
“PPTA apologises unreservedly to the minister and her staff for any distress caused in this case.”
BUT…
See the PPTA can’t help but find some other angle to have a go at the Minister. So much for “apologise unreservedly”. The silly PPTA think that the Minister responding to letters back to the schools where the teachers work (and identified those schools in their letters) is somehow bullying. A bit of a stretch… all because their ‘Gotcha’ ended up being completely untrue. However the information was accessed though, it did not give the minister the right to respond to the boards of trustees of teachers who had written as individual citizens, Duff said.
“The minister repeatedly claims that the teachers wrote on behalf of their schools but this is blatantly untrue.”
Some teachers did mention their school in their letters to give context to their concerns about class size increases, but this does not constitute as writing on behalf of the institution.
“Teachers are simply not authorised to write on behalf of their schools like that. If they were to do so it would have to be on school letterhead and authorised by the principal.
