Principal loses challenge to demotion over ‘emotional abuse’ of pupil

A school principal who was demoted after being found to have emotionally abused a pupil by requiring her to kneel on the floor on two occasions has lost her High Court challenge to the disciplinary process.

Máire Sheehy, former principal of Killaloe Convent Primary School, Co Clare, denied seeking to punish the girl or giving any instruction for her to kneel.

She said she simply put the child into other rooms to calm down a situation and as a “time out” following the pupil’s behaviour in class. She claimed the child had a “predilection for kneeling”.

Ms Sheehy was initially dismissed but on appeal this was reduced to demotion back to class teacher.

Ms Justice Úna Ní­Raifeartaigh rejected Ms Sheehy’s challenge to the disciplinary process which she said was flawed and tainted by bias against her.

The judge said, while the pendulum of attitudes towards disciplining pupils has happily swung far away from the harsh methods of decades ago, “one wonders whether there is a danger of swinging too far in the other direction” by going straight to a disciplining of the principal which almost led to her dismissal.

Ms Sheehy was appointed to a dual role of principal and teacher in the all girls national school which had five other teachers and 100 pupils in September 2007.

Strained

She claimed that from the start there was a strained and fractious atmosphere, compounded by a history of industrial relations discontent. Some seven years later, a number of members of staff wrote a letter complaining of difficulties within the school over a number of years and which had intensified in recent months.

There were complaints including a “fragmented atmosphere” and of staff being stressed. Mediation followed but there was little if any improvement, the judge said.

Six months later, the deputy principal, Alison Varley, wrote another letter to the board of management complaining of, among other things, Ms Sheehy’s demeaning manner, undermining of staff, failure to properly investigate the loss of €1,300 in fundraised monies and of Ms Sheehy smoking in the boiler house on a daily basis.

Ms Varley also alleged Ms Sheehy had undertaken “inappropriate methods of discipline” with regard to a particular pupil who she said had been instructed on two occasions to kneel on the ground facing the wall. It was this particular complaint that the new board of management chair, Luke Murtagh, carried out an investigation into.

The board conducted an oral hearing into the complaints in June 2017 at which Ms Sheehy strenuously denied the allegations against her.

Substantiated

The board decided the evidence against her had been substantiated and she should be dismissed.

She appealed and an independent panel rejected her appeal saying all procedures had been adhered to and the facts considered in a reasonable manner. However, it found the dismissal decision was disproportionate and recommended demotion.

Ms Justice Ní­ Raifeartaigh said even if there were defects in the original disciplinary hearing by the board, none of them were alleged to have tainted the appeal which Ms Sheehy did not challenge.