School spat over netball ban
A spat over a parent’s conduct at a netball game has escalated into a full-blown war of words
THE school first made headlines when the headmaster announced he was doing away with homework. Children shouldn’t spend seven hours a day at school and then go home and get out their books again, headmaster Gavin Keller said. “We made sure the seven hours they spend at school are so focused there’s still time to play sport, have their friends around, and in the evening they can still go to bed and read.”
The decision was applauded by parents and education bodies – but Sun Valley Primary School in Cape Town has been making news for a different reason lately. And one mother has little time for a headmaster who, she says, runs the school in a my-way-or-the-highway fashion.
Sport, the field Keller is so passionate his learners have time for, is at the heart of a dispute that’s pitted this mother against school authorities.
Charlotte Damgaard is the mother of 11-year-old Sienna Noon, a talented netball player who was selected to play for the Western Province under-11 side. Sienna loves the sport – not even a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis has stopped her from darting across the court and dipping the ball squarely in the netball ring.
Charlotte, a Danish national who’s lived in SA for several years, has attended almost all her daughter’s matches yet if Keller has his way she’ll never watch another game. He’s labelled her “unruly” and “untameable” and the worst thing that could ever happen to her child.
Sienna was even dropped from the team at one stage – which sent Charlotte’s anger levels soaring into the stratosphere.
As far as she’s concerned Keller is a dictator and a bully who frequently hurls abuse at parents.
“It’s been stressful,” says the divorcee, who lives in the Cape Town suburb of Capri Village. “Sienna has cried a few times and told me, ‘Mom, if you can’t come and watch me then I don’t want to play’.”
Charlotte says the strain has been alleviated to a certain extent by the support she’s received from fellow parents at the school. “I’ve had more than 150 emails, many from parents I’ve never met before. All of them, without exception, are incredibly supportive.
“Their support gives me the strength to withstand what I’m sure will be a mammoth effort by the school to shut me down.”
YOU visited the school and spoke to parents who described Charlotte as “brave to finally stand up to Keller”. Others called her their hero. Still others chose not to speak for fear their kids could be victimised as a result.
In the midst of it all Charlotte stands firm: she’ll do what it takes to fight for her rights and the rights of her child.
THE drama started on 1 August when Charlotte attended a match Sun Valley was playing against Reddam House Constantia. The game took a nasty turn when, according to Charlotte, Reddam’s coach became “extremely biased in the way she refereed”.
Charlotte approached the ref to voice her frustration but was told to write to the school if she felt there was a problem.
So she did just that. “[Reddam netball] is the only school sport I’ve ever encountered where the bias is so blatant and pervasive,” she said in an email.
Keller was informed of Charlotte’s letter and lashed out at her in a response email, calling her “unruly”, “untameable” and an “unloving mother” who had little self-control.
“I was utterly shocked,” says Charlotte, who works as a project manager for a Norwegian text agency and has an older daughter, Freya (14).
Then, two weeks later, Charlotte wrote a letter to one of Sienna’s teachers about an issue unrelated to netball.
“I asked if I could get a copy of a keynote presentation Sienna created, which I’d only seen once. Sienna wanted to know how it could be improved and I felt I couldn’t explain it without having it in front of us.”
She admits her last remark to the teacher was “a bit rude”.
“I suggested it was unfortunate I’d now be helping her with this after she’d already done her presentation on stage. She hadn’t been shown these skills before or during the process.”
That must have been the final straw for Keller because he wrote back to Charlotte, this time banning her from Sienna’s netball games.
“You continue to behave in a manner that can only be described as totally unacceptable,” he wrote.
Keller felt Charlotte’s letter to Sienna’s teacher was “an appalling indicator of the trauma your child must go through each and every day of her life”.
He told Charlotte he’d be pulling Sienna from the school’s netball team unless she agreed to stay away and instead sent a medic to games to keep an eye on Sienna’s diabetes.
Charlotte was sent what’s referred to as an “exit form”. It was Keller’s way of “dismissing” her, Charlotte believes.
Two days after Keller’s second letter to Charlotte, Sienna, warmed-up and ready to take to the netball court, was told she wasn’t allowed to play.
A senior member of the school’s sport department called Charlotte – who’d refused to stay away – aside.
“I was told the instruction ‘comes from the top’ and that it’s between ‘you and Mr Keller, so you must take it up with him’,” Charlotte says.
“I had to walk over to the sideline and explain the situation to Sienna. She was in tears and kept asking, ‘ Why is this happening?’”
The school claimed Sienna had missed a practice and therefore couldn’t play in the match but Charlotte says her child has never missed a practice or match without a signed note.
“She was banned because the principal dislikes her mother,” she says bluntly.
Charlotte says that adding insult to injury is the fact her ex-husband, Simon Noon, was never informed of the goings-on, “even though he’s the one paying the school fees”.
“Imagine how he felt when he arrived to watch Sienna play, only to discover she’d been banned.”
WHEN YOU contacted Keller he declined to comment, saying he’d been advised by his legal team to refrain from speaking to the media until after a meeting was held with the school governing body (SGB), education department and Charlotte. But he made it clear he only had Sienna’s best interests at heart.
Keller, along with the SGB, Western Cape education department (WCED) circuit manager Thandi Jafta and Charlotte, were set to meet on 28 August to resolve matters.
But the meeting went ahead without Charlotte because she arrived with her lawyer.
“In terms of section 15 of the SA Schools Act, governing bodies act as separate legal entities to the department,” Jessica Shelver, spokesperson for the WCED says.
“Therefore legal matters need to be addressed through legal means. The circuit manager isn’t the legal representative of the department.”
The meeting resolved to ban Charlotte from school functions and events for the rest of the third term. Charlotte received a letter from Adnaan Mia, the SGB chairman, telling her the “sanction would be reimposed for a period of six months” if the school experienced “another incident of any sort” pertaining to her.
Charlotte is now considering taking Sienna out of Sun Valley.
“It’s a shame because she loves it there. But you can’t have your child enrolled in a school where she can be victimised like this.”
‘The child was banned because the principal dislikes her mother’