The matter of a teacher hounded out of his job by racist abuse.
Dear Brighton Aldridge Community Academy,
At the March 7th CYPS Committee meeting Cllr Hannah Clare mentioned in passing an extremely troubling occurrence. She said:
"Our Safe and Well in School survey in 2021 highlighted that 59% of young people have witnessed racism in school. I spoke to a former teacher last week who described to me as leaving his role due to constant racist incidents, including monkey noises being made at him in the corridor and the classroom".
Since then, there have been rumours that this affair took place at BACA a few years ago. Can you confirm that these rumours are false?
Yours faithfully,
Adrian Hart
Dear Brighton Aldridge Community Academy,
Re: My FOI request 'The matter of a teacher hounded out of his job by racist abuse'.
I understand that responding to my request during the summer and in the run-up to a new school year is difficult (and I apologise for the timing of my request). Arguably there is no good time to burden a busy school with an FOI request. However, in my case the question I ask will take just a minute of your time and so I'd like to encourage you to deal with it as soon as reasonably possible. In any case, it would be good to hear from you today or very soon and get an idea of when/if you intend to respond.
To re-cap: Although critical of the council's decision to make public mention of this extremely serious allegation against a school, as a parent and an educator I remain an ardent supporter of B&H schools, have worked in many of them and want to offer you an opportunity to confirm that this utterance made at committee in March does NOT refer to BACA.
Yours faithfully,
Adrian Hart
Dear Mr Hart
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST
Thank you for your email dated 1^st August 2022 where you request the
following information:
At the March 7th CYPS Committee meeting Cllr Hannah Clare mentioned in
passing an extremely troubling occurrence. She said:
"Our Safe and Well in School survey in 2021 highlighted that 59% of young
people have witnessed racism in school. I spoke to a former teacher last
week who described to me as leaving his role due to constant racist
incidents, including monkey noises being made at him in the corridor and
the classroom".
Since then, there have been rumours that this affair took place at BACA a
few years ago. Can you confirm that these rumours are false?
Response to your request:
Your request, in summary, was “whether a teacher who resigned due to
constant racist incidents including monkey noises in corridors and
classrooms a “few years” before February/ March 2021 did so whilst working
at BACA. Response: BACA can neither confirm nor deny that it holds
information in this regard.
If you are dissatisfied with this response you have the right to request
an internal review. Your request should be made within 40 days of the
date of this response. Please explain clearly the reasons why you
disagree with our response or are dissatisfied with the handling of a
request. Requests for a review of responses to or the handling of FOI
requests aim to be dealt with within 20 school days of receipt. The
review will be undertaken by an officer who did not deal with the original
request. Please send your written review request to the Head of
Compliance, email address - [1][email address]
If you are not happy with the outcome of the internal review, you have the
right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Officer, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire,
SK1H 0ET.
Yours sincerely
DPL Lead
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