Principal resigns after allegedly watching indecent material at school

The principal of an exclusive co-educational school in Victoria has resigned, following an incident involving the alleged viewing of indecent material. The incident is a reminder that schools, like any workplaces, are subject to a set of expectations - often best laid out in a code of conduct. When it comes to protecting your school's reputation, these are the best tools to use to manage your staff.

According to a press release from the Chairman of the school council, the school accepted the resignation of the Principal effective 2 April 2015. The press release does not state the reason for the resignation however media reports in relation to the incident allege that the Principal had to leave the school due to being caught viewing indecent material on his computer at school. The incident is alleged to have taken place in the Principal's office and was photographed by students via Snapchat, social media app.

This incident, if the media reports are accurate, is damaging for the staff member in question and also the reputation of the school.

In situations such as these, although managers consider such actions to be clearly inappropriate (especially in a school context), it is important that a school's expectations and its incident management protocols are laid out in clear, accessible and easily understandable policies and procedures.

Such policies and procedures include:

• a code of conduct;
• an email and internet usage policy;
• a critical incident policy;
• discipline and termination procedures; and
• a media and external communications policy.

In this case, the Chairman of the school is quoted in a local publication as saying that 'the matter was a breach of our standards'. Following a school investigation into the incident, the Chairman reported that 'the school investigation confirmed [the Principal] had not broken any law' and 'at no point did it affect the care provided to students'.

Having a clear set of employment standards and expectations, such as in a code of conduct and/or in human resources and workplace safety policies, means that a school can refer back to the terms of these policy when an incident of unacceptable behaviour or serious misconduct arises.

The legal consequences of an employee accessing inappropriate material while at work or using work computers has been the subject many cases heard by the Fair Work Commission and similar tribunals.

The following interesting determinations have been made in such cases:

• a dismissal based on a 'zero tolerance' policy was not justified when a company's culture condoned accessing inappropriate material at work (Budlong v NCR Australia Pty Limited [2006] NSWIRComm 288);
• the dismissal of multiple employees at a company for trafficking inappropriate material was upheld because the conduct involved multiple breaches of the employer's 'Email', 'Good Working Relations', 'Code of Business Conduct' and 'Diversity Equal Opportunity' policies on discrimination, harassment and bullying (Batterham and others v Dairy Farmers Limited t/a Dairy Farmers [2011] FWA (1230) (29 March 2011); and, in contrast
• the dismissal of three employees for breaching the employer's IT policy for sending inappropriate images to their work colleagues was found to be harsh and unreasonable given the employer did not provide any warnings of dismissal, was inconsistent in its treatment of other staff who engaged in similar behaviour, and there had been no evidence of harm or damage from the misconduct. The length of service of the long-term employees had also not been factored in (B, C and D v Australian Postal Corporation T/A Australia Post [2013] FWCFB 6191).

In most workplaces - especially education workplaces - the viewing or distribution of such indecent material is clearly inappropriate. But despite this, it is important that such allegations are dealt with in the proper manner. All employees are entitled to procedural fairness under employment law. If nothing else, the above cases demonstrate that dismissing a person for the right reason, but in the wrong way, will often result in an averse finding for the employer.

This case is a reminder that staff in schools must act as managers, as well as educators and carers. This means that they must have in place proper employment policies and procedures to ensure that they can lawfully manage their employees. Clear policies are also important - staff members must be able to easily understand what their obligations are, and what the consequences of breaching those obligations are.