Relief teacher's ERA reinstatement bid fails

STUFF

Teacher's application for compensation and reinstatement to a school's relief pool has been rejected by the ERA as outside their jurisdiction.

A relief teacher who allegedly "physically threatened, bullied and humiliated" a student has had his application to be reinstated rejected.

The teacher, whose name and that of the South Island secondary school is suppressed, was removed from the relief pool after an incident while teaching a class of Year 9s in March 2017. 

The details of the incident have largely been suppressed out of sensitivity to the student, but it was reportedly serious enough for the student, who was teased and distressed, to be unsettled for two weeks afterwards.

The man, a former student of the school, made an application to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) claiming he had been unjustifiably dismissed and was subject to disadvantage in his employment when the school made a report about the incident to the Education Council on the grounds it may constitute "serious misconduct".

The incident occurred after the man was asked to work a number of relief shifts in March last year. During one of these, while taking a class of Year 9s, there was an exchange between the man and the class and with one student in particular.

As as result of what was said, the class got "very excited". The man said he regretted saying what he did, and told the class to settle down.

The student's parents complained to the school that their child had been "physically threatened, bullied and humiliated" by the man. Another parent is also believed to have complained, and two students filed incident reports.

The school's principal gave the man a letter at the end of his relief work outlining concerns about his conduct, as well as two other allegations: that he had sworn several times in front of the class and told a joke that "could have been seen as open to misinterpretation".

The ERA, in a determination issued April 17, ruled it did not have jurisdiction to investigate the man's claims as he was not an employee, nor did the school owe him a duty of good faith between short-term relief engagements. He had been doing relief work at the school since March 2015.

Authority member David Appleton said if he did have jurisdiction he would have concluded the decision to remove the man was one a "fair and reasonable" employer could have made.

Appleton said he was satisfied the man did not intend to threaten, bully and humiliate the student, and that his comments were made "as part of boisterous schoolroom banter".

However, he said the comment was "ill-judged" and left it open for the school to conclude it could amount to serious misconduct.

As of the ERA's investigation of March 27, the council had yet to make any decision on the matter. The man is no longer teaching.