A prestigious private school on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria (the School) is locked in an ongoing battle with its parents’ association (Association), leading to defamation proceedings being instigated in the Victorian Supreme Court (Court).
A regional newspaper has reported that former Association president, Dr Paul Hanks, is suing the School’s principal Mr Stuart Johnston after Mr Johnston claimed in a letter to parents that the Association executive was harming the School’s reputation.
Consequently, Dr Hanks has commenced defamation proceedings on the basis that those comments resulted in him feeling ‘humiliated, embarrassed and held up to hatred, ridicule and contempt’.
The law of defamation relates to the protection of a person’s reputation. Instigating defamation proceedings in court allows a person who believes their reputation has been wrongfully attacked, to seek damages for the harm that the attack has caused.
We’ve previously written several articles about different factual scenarios involving schools and various members of the school community that have led to legal action on the basis of defamatory comments made in a variety of mediums, including on twitter and in print media.
Those articles include
This latest incident presents a different combination of school stakeholders, being a parents’ association and a principal.
According to the Mornington Leader, in April 2015 a letter was addressed to the School’s principal from the Association executive members demanding that they have control over their finances and be permitted to operate ‘without influence or pressure from the principal’. That letter was apparently leaked to the Mornington Leader.
The letter alleged that $45,000 was transferred out of the Association’s account by the School in 2014 without the Association’s permission. The funds were to be used for a ‘heritage garden project’ that was not supported by parents and has since been shelved. The Association has claimed that those funds are being retained by the School.
The Association’s president had asserted that the Association should have complete control over their funds and account and that any future development plans must go through an approval process with members before money is committed.
In response to the Association’s letter, the School’s principal has stated that the School had placed the funds in the Association’s trust account and that they were not being accessed by the School.
In addition to the dispute over the $45,000 allocation, in documentation filed at the Court (reported by the Herald Sun), Dr Hanks alleges that the School sent a letter in May to parents in which Mr Johnston accused Dr Hanks of transferring $200,000 from school coffers to an ‘offsite account’.
Dr Hanks also claims that the letter:
Dr Hanks has also claimed that Dr Johnston has failed to apologise for the comments in the letter.
It is unfortunate for a school when its private matters are aired in public. And this is not simply a case of a school having to deal with problem parents.
In this instance, the various facts have led to a dispute between the Association and the School and also a separate (now litigious) dispute between the School’s principal and the Association’s president.
At stake here is funding intended to benefit the students at the School in addition to the reputation of various parties.
Given that the highest priority of school boards is their reputation, what can your school do to try and avoid a similar set of circumstances arising?
Most importantly, a school should have a Media and External Communications Policy as part of its governance program to assist in minimising the impact of negative situations that arise.
An internal complaints handling program is also a fundamental element of a school’s governance program which can assist schools to identify and manage complaints from various stakeholders to avoid them becoming public and ending up in court.