Teacher claims students felt they had ‘run of the place’ and filmed a colleague’s ‘backside’

A FORMER teacher at a Dublin school claims she was penalised after she and her colleagues raised concerns about student discipline, including an alleged assault and the secret filming of a female teacher’s ‘backside’.

Jennifer Clancy, a Spanish teacher with 20 years’ experience, said at the Workplace Relations Commission, that students at Templeogue College had begun to feel they had ‘the run of the place’ after a number of serious incidents.

These incidents were, in Ms Clancy’s opinion, not properly dealt with by the school principal, Niamh Quinn.

She said the school did not feel safe and she likened it to a ‘ticking time bomb’ where teachers were waiting for the next serious incident to happen.

In February 2022, Ms Clancy said a number of meetings of the ASTI resulted in 11 teachers, including herself, signing a document raising 17 issues with what was happening in the school.

Some teachers were concerned that CCTV had been used to monitor them without their consent, and there were allegations regarding the right to disconnect from work, bullying and harassment and the conduct of staff meetings.

However, Ms Clancy said disciplinary issues were the catalyst for many of the teachers. She said the school was well-run when she first worked there in 2018, but there was a ‘severe drop in disciplinary standards being enforced and students feeling they had the run of the place’.

In 2020, Ms Clancy experienced what she called the most serious incident of her

Threw phone at her, hitting her in the chest

career when she told a student to hand over his mobile phone. He initially refused and when she insisted, he threw the phone at her, striking her in the chest.

She was ‘shocked’ and brought it to the attention of senior management. ‘I expected it to be dealt with, but what transpired was he was given an internal suspension, which was a new thing brought in by Ms Quinn.’

She said these suspensions were served in a school study room which was sometimes unsupervised, rather than at home.

On another occasion a student filmed a female teacher’s ‘backside’ as she walked along a school corridor. The teacher ‘fought and fought’ to have the issue dealt with, but still feels the boy did not receive an appropriate sanction, Ms Clancy said.

Ms Clancy said the document was intended to make the school a safer workplace. However, she said as a result of signing the grievance document, she was penalised by Ms Quinn. The hearing continues.