Update | Canadian International School teachers storm out of meeting as head refuses to quit
The Canadian International School is in "the middle of a crisis", one of its founding members admitted for the first time yesterday - but its embattled principal refused to resign.
The Canadian International School is in “the middle of a crisis”, one of its founding members admitted for the first time yesterday – but its embattled principal refused to resign.
Of the more than 100 teachers who took part in a special town hall meeting yesterday, almost all stood up to say they wanted the head, Dr Gregg Maloberti, to go as the governors looked on stunned, several staff told the .
A dozen teachers upset by the management’s stance in an increasingly bitter governance dispute stormed out in tears, while the board chairman later told a parent seeking more accountability she should move her children to a public school.
Maloberti, asked by the if he would resign, insisted he would not.
The board of governors urged teachers at the closed-door emergency meeting to give Maloberti a chance despite his shortcomings.
Parents waited outside the meeting for answers, as teachers aired their grievances about the so-called dire state of the school’s leadership team. The school had warned teachers not to divulge the contents of the meeting to parents or the press.
Several teaching sources inside the meeting explained the board acknowledged Maloberti’s shortcomings, but said he had to stay and insisted there was a workable solution, though they did not give details.
“The board said that Gregg leaving was not an option and that there are other solutions to the problem,” one teacher said, declining to give their name, but said the board failed to outline any clear road map to end the current stalemate.
Teachers have pleaded with governors for months that the school’s leadership did not have a plan to enhance its vision.
A petition with 900 signatures demanding the sacking of Maloberti was rejected by the board, teachers said.
It came after the controversial dismissal of primary section principal Dylan Hughes and his deputy Kathy Nutting – who had spoken out against the management – last month, outraging many parents and teachers.
Maloberti has been accused of trying to stop the pair speaking out against the school’s management in its attempt to gain global accreditation from the Council of International Schools.
Chairman of the board, Richard Wong Che-kung, failed to win over staff, embittered after he slammed a teacher’s “child like” behaviour over governance in a previous meeting.
“His apology was read out from his iPhone, so I’m not sure if it was written by him or not, but it certainly wasn’t an off the cuff apology,” said another teacher, who declined to give a name for fear of being sacked.
The mediator later asked if staff felt the apology was sufficient but not many people raised their hand to agree, several teachers observed.
Another teacher said the “feeling leaving the meeting was of sadness and grave concern for the future of our school.”
Parents cheered and applauded teaching staff as they left the meeting.
Felix Fong Wo, one of the Wong Chuk Hang school’s founders, was candid. “I feel your pain,” he told mother-of-three Teresa Fox. “And I know the school is in the middle of a crisis.”
Fox confronted the governors in a lift after the meeting.
She told them: “I want my [three] kids to have an education they started with [at the school] seven years ago … but when you have teachers scared to death to come into school, and you have a head of school that cannot even address [us] …”
Board chairman Wong hit back, saying governors ran the school and were not accountable to parents.
“If you are looking for this sort of transparency, then you should go and take your kids to the public school,” Wong told Fox. “This is a private, independent school and run by the board of governors … and [we] make [the] decisions.”
Wong said a meeting with parents would take place soon in a “rational way”.
Founding member Fong told Fox: “I know [the school’s crisis is] not unfounded. It cannot be groundless when all of you are so highly educated, that you don’t just believe in rumours.
“We are now finding out ways to overcome this crisis, and how to let the school move forward.”