Teacher’s Council

The Labour party opposes Charter Schools because there is no requirement for the schools to hire only registered teachers. They claim it is to protect the children.

Chirs Hipkins even said that in parliament the other day:

Chris Hipkins: … but I am concerned about students’ safety from being in classrooms with unqualified, unregistered teachers …

Hon Nikki Kaye: Is the member saying that children in early childhood centres are unsafe? Is that what the member is saying? Is that what he’s saying to every single child in an early childhood centre.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes.

Which makes the story in the NZ Herald about a registered teacher who falsified her records even more funny, not because she managed to fool John Campbell, but because she also fooled the Teacher’s Council the body responsible for registering teachers.

A childcare worker who forged her qualifications has been sentenced to eight months’ home detention.

Tracy Gwendoline Hibberd was found guilty of five counts of forging documents and three of obtaining by deception by a jury at the Auckland District Court in March.  Read more »

The teacher unions and the Teachers’ Council all oppose charter schools on the basis that there is no requirement to register teachers.

Apparently it is to protect other staff and students. However along, very long list of predators masquerading as teachers, presumably registered and therefore ‘safe’ are being paraded before the courts.

One such predator has now been named after his name suppression lapsed.

A high school teacher charged with making secret up-skirt videos can now be named as Douglas Haora Martin, who was formerly assistant principal at Lincoln High School.

Martin has abandoned a bid to keep his name secret with an appeal to the High Court, and the suppression order has lapsed today.

The deadline for filing the appeal papers – a period set by a judge when he refused name suppression last week – expired this morning and the Christchurch District Court office confirmed that no papers had been filed.  Read more »

All of the teacher unions, and the Teachers’ Council oppose charter schools, now known as partnership schools, mainly on the basis that there isn’t a requirement for teacher’s to be registered. Apparently the kids would be at risk.

Registration hasn’t stopped a parade of kiddy fiddler teachers through our courts, nor a staff member hitring a hitman to whack her principal, or this woman from rooting her staff members:

A school principal who was in a sexual relationship with a staff member is to face a Teachers Tribunal disciplinary hearing for failing to declare a conflict of interest when the teacher was being investigated for assaulting a student.

The principal, whose name was suppressed, has been accused of serious misconduct by the Complaints Assessment Committee.

The committee said the woman failed to declare her “very close friendship and sexual relationship” with the resident director of the school, who was also not named, “sometime before September 2007 and December 2007″.  Read more »

Stuff reports

A school deputy principal who pawned a school laptop to fuel her gambling addiction has been censured by the Teachers Council.

The intermediate school teacher, who was not named in the decision, blamed her gambling addiction and grief over the death of her father for the 2008 theft.

The unidentified school did not know she had pawned off the laptop for money until two years later when she was asked to return it for IT purposes.

She then lied to her principal, saying the laptop had been stolen from her car.

Gambling, stealing, lying to an employer about theft and gambling, it’s another high quality teacher protected by the PPTA and the Teachers Council to continue her gambling fueled rampage.   Read more »

Post Primary Teachers’ Association protecting pedos?

The PPTA has stated an opposition to Charter Schools, or partnership schools as they are now called.

Their major point of argument seems to be over the exemption of these schools from teacher registration processes currently managed and operated by the Teachers’ Council.

The PPTA says that failure to have teacher registered exposes children to undue risk. Of course this blog has highlighted numerous cases of currently registered teachers molesting and abusing child or even hiring gang members to put a hit on the principal.

So I was a little surprised to see in their submission on partnership schools clause 3.3.2:  Read more »

The various teacher union oppose Charter Schools because they say the teachers won’t be required to be registered. They reckon kids will be at risk.

I’ll bet this teacher was registered when he was offending:

A former Tauranga teacher paid a teenager to have sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend, while he watched.

Andrew Loader, 49, pleaded guilty to a charge under the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 in Tauranga District Court today, the Sunlive website reported.

A charge of paying a 16-year-old for sexual services was withdrawn and replaced with one of contract sex with a person under 18.

Loader paid the man, who was in a consensual sexual relationship with the girl, to have sex while he watched. He was remanded on bail for sentencing on March 15.  Read more »

Graeme Edgeler has applied some smart thinking to overturning the Teacher’s Council secrecy that protects dodgy teachers…and god knows there are a lot of them.

He has laid a complaint with Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee:

Any member of Parliament can move a motion to amend, or disallow a regulation, but the Regulations Review Committee is empowered to inquire into subordinate legislation, and a successful complaint to that Committee is a good way to get the rest of Parliament to take notice of your concerns. It operates on a more consensual basis than ordinary select committees, but the individual members of the Committee (currently three National and two Labour), have a special power that other members of Parliament don’t have. If one of them moves a motion of disallowance, the House has to vote on it, or the motion succeeds.

Top stuff…the details of his complaint are as follows:  Read more »

I am highly critical of the Herald but today they have done something of a public service in highlighting the draconian secrecy provisions of the Teachers’ Council disciplinary proceedings. Secrecy that allows criminal teachers to escape wider censure.

A physical education teacher at a Christian school has admitted to an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old student – one of 11 teachers found guilty of serious misconduct last year whose actions have been permanently suppressed.

The New Zealand Teachers Council has posted a warning advising the public and media it is illegal to publish details of disciplinary proceedings.

The warning is based on a little-known blanket suppression rule that has never been enforced, and is more draconian than the rules used by the criminal courts and most disciplinary bodies.

The Teachers Council Disciplinary Tribunal has suspended the PE teacher’s practising certificate for three years, and has ordered him to tell prospective employers of the offence if he returns to teaching.

However because of the new warning we can’t report his name. Nor can we report his school. Strictly speaking, the Herald on Sunday shouldn’t be reporting the misconduct and suspension at all.

Teachers Council (Conduct) Rule 32(1), set in place under statute in 2004, means nobody may publish any details of a tribunal decision. That means any reports you’ve read in newspapers or seen on television are against the law.  Read more »

Don’t you just love teachers and their governing body. Check out the stats from the Teachers’ Council.

Hitting a pupil with a chair, grooming a young girl for sex and a $60,000 benefit fraud were among the charges that saw teachers struck off this year.

Others, including one who arranged for a gang hit on a principal, were censured for serious misconduct and had strict conditions put on their practising licences.

Statistics released under the Official Information Act show nine male and six female teachers had their registration with the Teachers Council cancelled this year. Registration certifies that a teacher is trained, qualified and suitable to be a teacher, and is compulsory in all state schools.

Compulsory registration is working so well, and consistently isn’t it?  Read more »

The teacher unions oppose Charter Schools because the legislation does not require compulsory registration of teachers. They argue that the kids are safer with registered teachers…

A primary school teacher has been arrested and charged with indecently assaulting pupils at the Auckland school where he worked.

…

It is understood that police from the child protection unit conducted video interviews with pupils aged between 5 and 10.

In at least three interviews, the children’s statements about the circumstances around the alleged offending were almost identical.

When is the Teachers’ Council going to stop acting like a union protecting its own at any costs and start looking after our children?

The Herald usefully summarises:

• In August, Kaitaia man James Parker, 37, pleaded guilty to 49 charges of sexually abusing boys at Pamapuria School
• In July, Papatoetoe High School teacher Damian Christopher Gillard, 43, was suspended after police charged him with a raft of sex and drug-related offending in connection with seven young women.
• In September, teacher aide Kevin Dean McMillian, 19, was to serve an 18-month intensive supervision order and 200 hours of community work for offending that included exchanging more than 400 text messages, many of a sexual nature, with a 13-year-old girl.