Time for WCED to review its policy on recalcitrant pupils

THEY must be humming a tune from The Sound of Music at the Western Cape Education Department ( WCED). But instead of Maria, it’s “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Brian Isaacs”. The rambunctious head of South Peninsula High for more than 30 years has been suspended by WCED on charges of verbal and physical abuse of pupils, and for refusing to take back pupils he wished to expel.

There’s also court action against him for transgressions of noise nuisance laws with his infamously loud school public address system.

The starting point for any commentary on Isaacs has to be gratitude for anyone who has put so much intellect and commitment into educating children through long and trying times and in difficult circumstances. He certainly has my respect.

Great school leaders are definitive people who care and stand for something.

They are not scared of making decisions and communicate them clearly.

They know that fair and effective discipline is essential for children, both individually and collectively.

They do not hide behind rules, boards, departments and processes.

All of that applies to Isaacs in bucket loads. South Peninsula High under his tenure has been a passionate place, not a run-of-the-mill school.

Its academic track record is impressive. For many of his students, he’s a figure of legend to be passionately defended.

However, Isaacs is also a man with his elbows out.

For a headmaster of such authority, he seems to have little time for anyone in authority. He regularly and wilfully challenges the department. He is highly politicised in his utterances.

It’s possible to make the case that the WCED, down the years, has been enormously tolerant of such a disruptive figure in their ranks. He has also left quite a few very aggrieved parents and children in his wake.

The specifics of the recent charges against Isaacs I’ll leave to WCED processes and the courts, but there is one hugely important issue in all this that needs a broader airing.

That’s the expulsion of pupils from schools. This is where the department and school governing bodies (SGBs) are regularly colliding.

Principals at the coalface know that a couple of defiant pupils can poison the well for everyone.

They can undermine any authority that teachers may have and disastrously impact on the education of many.

When, as a last resort, SGBs understandably seek to remove such disruptive pupils, the WCED usually refuses the request and ultimately accedes only if there’s another school explicitly willing to admit them.

Theoretically, philosophically and morally that’s the correct approach.

But the department’s functionaries don’t have to live with the often disastrous consequences of their purity on schooling.

Pandering to the rights of the recalcitrant few can unreasonably and seriously impair those of the willing majority.