‘I am tired, happy and free’
Sacked principal gets record payout for false accusations. Adele Redmond reports.
After a ‘‘surreal’’ two-year saga, sacked Rangiora High School principal Peggy Burrows will receive up to $150,000 for being wrongfully dismissed.
The Employment Relations Authority found Burrows, the school’s principal for 13 years, was not proved to have leaked confidential board of trustees documents before her dismissal but ruled against her reinstatement as principal, unconvinced a positive working relationship could be restored.
Speaking from her country home near Amberley, Burrows, 57, said the 10 months and $116,000 she spent fighting Rangiora High commissioner Bev Moore’s decision was worth it to clear her name.
‘‘It was very humiliating in a community like this. It was difficult to even have the courage to go into town to do my groceries. I am tired and I am happy and I am free,’’ added Burrows.
Rangiora High’s board asked for specialist help from the Ministry of Education in 2014 to help manage their finances and farmland assets, partially sold in 2007 for more than $7 million, former board member Warren Newbury said.
But that help also included Moore, who compiled a damning report on Burrows’ relationship with three board members who later resigned ahead of a board election that year.
In the report Moore quoted governance trainer Al Fone’s perception of a ‘‘complete breakdown of trust’’ within a ‘‘climate of significant angst and frustration’’ and reported trustees felt ‘‘bullied’’ by Burrows’ allegedly overbearing behaviour.
While Burrows admits clashing with those individuals over their proposals to purchase new farmland, she said they were fraught with conflicts of interest that she agreed would have cost her her job.
‘‘What they are asking you to believe about me is that I am so powerful and so strong that I was a law unto myself and could manipulate lawyers, teachers and businesspeople. Nothing in a school happens in isolation.’’
On February 26, 2015 – a day after her report was finalised – the ministry dismissed the board and appointed Moore in its place. Many former trustees are yet to read it.
‘‘At the time I was startled but there’s nothing you can do,’’ said Dave Turnbull, who was chair of the board for only three months. ‘‘The board struck me as competent as any board I have been involved with since 1989.’’
Burrows similarly felt the school, with $14m in assets, climbing student achievement and glowing ERO reviews, was ‘‘poised for excellence’’.
In April, 2015, TVNZ reporter Michael Parkin received 11 confidential board documents and an anonymous letter, which he believed were from someone
kIt was very humiliating in a community like this. It was difficult to even have the courage to go into town to do my groceries. Peggy Burrows
‘‘clearly close to [Burrows],’’ the ERA judgement notes.
Two months later Burrows was suspended for a ‘‘significant breach of privacy’’ pending investigation and a maelstrom of rumours emerged; primarily that she’d spent school money on unnecessary international travel.
‘‘If I had done anything that was misappropriation or misconduct it would have been resolved in two minutes, not two years,’’ she said. ‘‘I lost my professional home, I lost my professional family and I lost 1800 children who I love dearly in the one day.’’
Burrows was fired in March last year following Moore’s $150,000 investigation – an investigation that the ERA has now found had failed to uncover the source of the leak or question key staff, and reached conclusions inconsistent with her investigator’s report. The ERA did not uphold Burrows’ claim Moore’s process amounted to bullying.
Moore, still the school’s commissioner, did not respond to requests for comment and other senior staff at Rangiora High declined to talk.
Ministry of Education secretary David Wales defended Moore’s work and rejected Burrows’ belief the ministry appointed a commissioner in ‘‘blatant self-interest’’.
‘‘This was always about getting me out so the Ministry could control the school and its $14m in financial assets. I think there were people who had an agenda to remove the principal and they were effective, sadly,’’ Burrows said.
Burrows is unsure whether to appeal for her reinstatement, but said she’ll remain in the education sector.