TEACHER LOCKED OUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 977, 21 May 1930, Page 1

TEACHER LOCKED OUT

TROUBLE IN NORTHERN AIDED SCHOOL EXPECTED TO MILK COWS “A high-handed procedure” was the comment of Mr. A. Burns, chairman of the Auckland Education Board, at a meeting this morning when a report was received from the advisory inspector in connection with the alleged

closing of a small aided school north of Auckland by the owner of the property on which the building stands. •J*HE school was being aided by the parents of the six children attending at the time when the woman teacher took charge. The main north road had been constructed recently along a new r<pute which would have led right through the building, and the board accordingly gave permission to a nearby farmer to remove the school to his property. Four of this man’s children had been attending.

The inspector visited the school, which he found locked. He was informed that the four children had been withdrawn and would not a.ttend while the present teacher was in charge.

Complaints had been made by the tepcher that she had been expected by the farmer, with whom she boarded, to do household duties and occasionally to milk the cows. When school work interfered with household duties, she was expected to leave the school. She accordingly left, and is now living with another family, teaching their two children. She cannot enter the school or teach the other four children of the district.

Immediately the teacher had been ordered to lea\ r e the school, an advertisement appeared in Auckland papers for a teacher for a “country household school, four children. R.C., to help with household duties.” A payment of 25s a week, with keep, was offered. This was similar to the advertisement which attracted the former teacher. “TEACHER AND SERVANT” “It is quite evident that a teacher and servant combined is wanted, and, if this family is allowed to make its own arrangements, we will have trouble again,” states the inspector’s report. “I am of the opinion that the teacher has a good case against this family to recover the loss of salary suffered as a result of their arbitrary action in closing the school without the board’s authority.” “This man had no right to dismiss the teacher without our permission, and his specifying the teacher’s religion is impertinent,” commented the chairman, moving that an explanation be asked for.