Terrible toll in battle of teacher v school

A bitter employment case has given Queen Margaret College's dirty laundry a very public airing. Patrick Crewdson investigates why a terminally ill teacher would spend his dying months fighting his former employers in court.

For four days they held down one side of the table, sighing in exasperation at slurs on their school's good name.

Across the table, a debilitated teacher seethed against his former employers, his measured diction occasionally interrupted by anger.

And the reputation of one of Wellington's premier schools struggled beneath the weight of witness statements.

The case of Stuart Selwood v Queen Margaret College pitted the school against itself and exposed a serious rift between teachers and the management.

Before the Employment Relations Authority, current and former staff of the school lined up with the Selwood family against the school's hierarchy – principal Carol Craymer, deputy principal Rosey Mabin, bursar Annette Lendrum, year 13 dean Milada Pivac and others.

What both sides expected to be a quick hearing began early in March, sprawling through two days and spilling over to another two days reserved later in the month.

That hearing had to be rescheduled when Dr Selwood underwent an emergency colostomy – one of three times he was admitted to hospital during the 12-week intermission before the case resumed for a final two days in late May.

A teacher of 38 years, Dr Selwood filed his claims of constructive dismissal, personal grievance, and breach of contract after a 3 1/2-year stint at the private school for girls.

In a determination delivered last week, the authority found in favour of the school for most of the complaints.

The school said the ruling exonerated it, though Dr Selwood also claimed a partial victory.

Most striking among his list of complaints was the charge that the stress he suffered at the school masked the symptoms of his bowel cancer till it spread to his lungs and became terminal.

He claimed to have been bullied, pressured, and mistreated – forced to accept a revised job description under threat of redundancy; made to work out of a "storeroom"; victimised after an altercation over a pupil's iPod; denied a support person at meetings with management; and marginalised by an audit of the school's IT operations.

Originally, he sought $74,000 compensation – as well as for the school to cover his legal and medical costs – but he reduced that to $59,000 as the hearing closed. In the end, the authority awarded him $5000.

Oncologist Peter Dady told the authority Dr Selwood's life expectancy was one to two years. Stress would not have caused the cancer, but it could have cloaked the symptoms till it was too late, he said.

The school authorities denied conducting a campaign to force Dr Selwood out, and said they responded to each of his concerns appropriately as they arose.

In an interview at their family home in Lower Hutt in the months between the conclusion of the case and the authority's decision, Stuart and Sally Selwood told The Dominion Post of the enormous emotional and financial toll of the case.

"Apart from the practical, physical things, it's been emotionally draining as well," said Dr Selwood, who now works for the Customs Service.

But he never contemplated abandoning the action, even as the cancer advanced, because he felt he had to speak out on behalf of others who could not afford the risk.

"I saw things and heard things that people shouldn't be subjected to. I thought at the time I was strong enough and I had the experience and the standing to do something myself."

He said the cancer was not a factor when he launched legal action, because it was not diagnosed till December 2006 – after the parties had already been through a bout of mediation.

"This was not motivated by illness," Mrs Selwood said.

"But I guess our resolve strengthened because it took on a huge new dimension."

Both sides hired top employment lawyers, and the Selwoods said they had spent more than $60,000 on legal fees.

"We've used a lot of our retirement funds," Mrs Selwood said. "Stuart's life is going to be cut short. Our retirement was based on us both working for the next nine years but Stuart's not going to be here for nine years. He's only managing to work three days a week at the moment, if he's lucky. And he may not be here in a year's time, that's our cold hard reality. The cost to us has been tremendous."

The couple each had counselling to handle the strain of the legal proceedings.

"Are there any winners in this situation?" Mrs Selwood said. "No, there aren't. We're not winners. Stuart's going to pay for it with his life. Queen Margaret aren't winners . . . They've still got a very serious problem."

Mrs Selwood blamed the school for the public nature of the case, saying her husband would have accepted "a decent settlement" if one had been offered at mediation.

"We feel sad for the students, some of the staff. We don't wish the school ill will," she said.

Dr Selwood said: "Hopefully people can see the issue isn't about the school. The issue is about the management of the school. In my mind they're quite separate things."

But he believed the Christian school's actions during the case contrasted ironically with its motto of "by the light of truth".

Board of governors chairman Allan Freeth – who is also chief executive of TelstraClear – attended much of the hearing, and the school also hired the PR services of former journalist Shona Geary.

In a letter to members of the school community after the first hearing days in March, Dr Freeth insisted the college was "in good heart", despite the allegations levelled against it in court.

"It is important for you to understand that the board of governors has no doubts that the school has acted in a just and fair way," he wrote.

"The board has unqualified confidence in Ms Craymer and her leadership team and is offended by the allegations and inferences made about Carol and her team."

Criticising Dr Selwood for taking the dispute "into the public arena", he said the school had "a very disciplined strategy" for dealing with media coverage and anyone approached should direct inquiries to him.

That strategy appears to have been to batten down the hatches.

Ms Craymer and Dr Freeth declined repeated interview requests from The Dominion Post during the wait for the authority's decision. Ms Geary said the school's reputation was "intact", though the college would not supply up-to-date roll statistics or figures for staff turnover.

Old Girls' Association president Annabelle Tye was positive about the school, but was also unwilling to answer questions.

This article could not be printed till now because of an order the school gained from the authority banning any coverage outside straight court reporting till a decision was made on the case.

But though its detractors have been more vocal, the school does still have its proud supporters.

After the first hearing day a "proud QMC Old Girl", who did not give her name, wrote to The Dominion Post saying she was saddened to see the school's reputation "slandered in the public eye due to 'alleged' mistreatment".

She said Ms Craymer strived for the best for her pupils, and problems identified in the court case had been "grossly overstated".

Other members of the school community agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity, afraid being seen to criticise senior management could damage their future at the college.

One mother told The Dominion Post that since her daughter had been at the school, she believed it had changed from a "vibrant, warm and nurturing" environment to somewhere with the atmosphere of "a fridge".

As staff left, Ms Craymer had surrounded herself with a coterie of "scrubbed, ponytailed Brunnhildes", she said.

"Factions developed, with the principal apparently gathering about her a closed senior management team and sending out messages about loyalty at all costs." .

But she said her daughter would not hear a word said against the school and held Ms Craymer in high regard.

A former employee, who worked in various positions at the school, echoed Dr Selwood's concerns over the treatment of staff..

She felt it was "a pretty harsh environment. There was no support. . . . The warm fuzzies, they weren't there". She believed poor communication and mismanagement created an atmosphere of negativity that flowed down from the top.

Parents she had spoken to were dismayed the school had allowed the case to escalate.

"I know a lot of parents who are very upset about this because they see their fees paying for the solicitors."

The dispute even spread online, with an anonymously run website – qmcmonitor.googlepages.com – collating The Dominion Post's coverage of the case alongside photos of senior management and links to anti-bullying resources.

Much of the most damning criticism of the school came in briefs of evidence submitted to the authority.

Part-time IT teacher John Barrow said unhappy teachers referred to the senior management team as "the enemy". He has since resigned, after deputy principal Rosey Mabin told him his testimony at the initial hearing left him in an "untenable position".

Former teacher Virginia Horrocks said teachers felt they "were being subjected to a regime of divide and rule" – under an autocratic system that even banned personal mugs from the staffroom.

Since Ms Craymer took over as principal in January 2004, 14 teachers had left to take up similar or lower- level jobs at other schools, with three department heads leaving to return to the classroom, she said.

The authority also saw a May 2006 letter from members of the private school teachers' union to the board of governors that read: "Over the last two years we have seen substantial change to the college resulting in a falling roll, extraordinary staff turnover and minimal value placed on the professional skills and the goodwill of the teaching and support staff."

Dr Selwood's son John said in a letter to the authority that he watched his father sour from the stress he was under at the school, and the positive change when he left was "instant".

"It makes me so angry that my dad and my entire family have been put through this and now his illness, which will kill him."

TOP CLASS

QUEEN MARGARET COLLEGE
Type: Private Presbyterian girls, preschool to year 13

Roll: 388 (years 7-13), 685 (total)

Decile: 10

Fees: $2921 per term (years 7-13), $2075 a term (preschool to year 6)

* 2006 NCEA level 1 pass rate: 93 per cent (national average 60.7 per cent)

* 2006 NCEA level 2 pass rate: 97.3 per cent (nat average 65.2 per cent)

* 2006 NCEA level 3 pass rate: 93.1 per cent (nat average 53.5 per cent)

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