Police arrest parents who slate school on class WhatsApp

[noblegiraffe]

A primary school sought advice from the police after '“a high volume of direct correspondence and public social media posts” that had become upsetting for staff, parents and governors.' and the police response was to send 6 officers to their house to arrest the couple making the posts and put them in a cell all day.

Although the couple sound like an absolute pain in the arse who should pack it in, 6 police officers seems like a teensy bit of overkill, particularly with the amount of crime currently going uninvestigated. But with schools faced with spiralling numbers of vexatious parental complaints, something needs to happen. I think some unions are starting to offer legal advice and template solicitor letters for this situation.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d8c8566b-99b1-45c6-814b-008042d74a3a?shareToken=6deab807d148cf7695ed4d9d3664c51e

All Lib Dems are the same. Doesn't matter what Lib Dems are generally known for. It matters what this particular person, Lib dem or nor, did

That’s what they’re saying. Yet evidently they weren’t able to provide a shred of evidence to the police to substantiate it, hence the “investigation” being dropped. They then refused to provide any evidence to The Times also, which would have prevented the humiliation and embarrassment of this article being published. Yet they didn’t, presumably because it doesn’t exist.

A school asserting something does not make it a fact.

can you explain more about this ' 2 communications for the Telecommunications act to be used.'

I'm interested as I personally take great care not to comment on anything controversial using any Telecommunications medium however once or 2 in very small groups I have share my concern about the treatment of a child in school's care. Not a message that I would have nay problem to be seen by anyone but I'd still be interested what happens if screenshots were taken and shared. What breaches this Telecommunications act? tia

Also, the parent this article about actually works for the Times. Of course they are going to leave anything out that paints them in a bad light! It’s not a remotely objective article. And it still makes them look like arses! Schools can’t defend themselves in articles about them because they can’t disclose information about the child, the child’s behaviour and intricacies of the communication they have had with the parent or what has gone on due to safeguarding and data protection.

Even if it's a million emails. Say it was one million emails for the sake of argument.

It's an email. Block them. Don't call the police, if it's threatening, or violent tell us. The person involved works for the times, they know it will come out if they've been aggressive.

I’ve just checked… I’ve sent 40 emails to school about one of my children (who has special needs) over the last 6 months… It’s the standard way to communicate with our school and teachers. I don’t think I’m harassing anyone 😀
(I’m also a school governor so in addition to this I send loads of emails to school about other things.)
And I admit I’m not always polite about the school in private what’s app messages.)

Does anyone think I deserve a visit from the police?

Haha @lostintherainyday depends on the tone I suppose.

I remember a time when I was regularly summoned to the classroom door for a little chat, that filled me with anxiety 😳

Or the time that the school rang me and didn't start the call with "Mrs Marzipan, it's nothing to worry about ..." I had something to worry about and I still have nightmares about that call!

My child has SEN and whilst I think the police over reacted. I have no sympathy for the parents. I would love to hear an unfiltered account from the school.

Insufficient evidence and 'not a shred of evidence' are not the same thing.

The Times article contains WhatsApp comments where the couple were definitely making disparaging remarks about school staff and generally behaving like dicks. I'm not sure why they allowed those to be published when it's pretty embarrassing for them.

Have you ever had to deal with a rogue Governor both during their term and after it's ended (probably because of their behaviour contravening the Governors' Code of Conduct and Nolan Principles for Public Life)?

1. The Seven Principles of Public Life
The Seven Principles of Public Life (also known as the Nolan Principles) apply to anyone who works as a public office-holder. This includes all those who are elected or appointed to public office, nationally and locally, and all people appointed to work in the Civil Service, local government, the police, courts and probation services, non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), and in the health, education, social and care services. All public office-holders are both servants of the public and stewards of public resources. The principles also apply to all those in other sectors delivering public services.

1.1 Selflessness
Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.

1.2 Integrity
Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.

1.3 Objectivity
Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.

1.4 Accountability
Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.

1.5 Openness
Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.

1.6 Honesty
Holders of public office should be truthful.

1.7 Leadership
Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour and treat others with respect. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

Seems like he never got around to reading these; the Clerk must have had a pig of a job dealing with him.

I don’t work in a school but I do work with the general public and honestly a larger amount than you’d think are unhinged, it’s not unusual to have someone who emails on an almost daily basis and can’t understand that they’re wrong and/or unreasonable. More than once I’ve had clients lodge formal complaints that I’ve not responded to their emails immediately when they know, and have had an out of office response to confirm, that I’m on annual leave. Some people just get obsessed with one issue and can’t let it lie.

I’m always a “there’s 3 sides to every story”person but even this Times article of a Times Radio producer (so will likely be in the side of the couple) doesn’t portray them well

theyd had contact from police in December which didn’t seem to deter them

they sound batshit

The times article says "40 threads" not 40 emails and admit that some of the threads had multiple emails.

None of thr emails have been published, so who knows how they were written.

I read the story in the Times this morning and was baffled. Either a lot of important messages or context was left out or this was a massive overreaction by schools and police. And quite honestly it could be either.

Certainly some parents can be rude, entitled and obnoxious and perhaps those parents were like that and that is being left out of the story.

However, one of my children attended a primary school where the head was under the impression she could stop any discussion of school by parents as she saw fit. One time some very mild, politely expressed (and frankly perfectly justified) disappointment was expressed by a couple of parents on a specific matter on a private WhatsApp group, somebody shared it with the head who then sent out a snarler of a letter accusing parents of bullying staff and inappropriate conduct, based off those messages. I was dumbfounded that the head thought that appropriate and lost a lot of respect for her.

Reading the article, it does sound as though the position of the New Head was not appointed through an open process. Should they have complained about it?
I suspect it happens quite often.
The whatsapp group was obviously not private, or if so, one of the members must have notified the school, as else why would they have known.
The parents were forbidden to go on school premises (even for a parents evening), and asked to communicate only through emails.
As their daughter has epilepsy, this resulted in lots of emails.
When I look back at my DC's school teachers, and the number of ad hoc conversations the teachers had with all sorts of parents after school, which in this case, would not have been allowed; hence the emails.
So, I think the school were vindictive; call the police, as the entire process is the punishment, (being held at the police station for many hours) though why it takes 6 policemen to arrest them, and is way over the top.
Also, as both parents were apparantly arrested, what happened to the 9 year old daughter, while this was going on?
I also think the parents were very naive. Parents can NEVER win in this situation, as the teachers only take it out on the child. The only recourse is for the child to change schools.

Oh, adding to that, he's likely to be the subject of a complaint to the Monitoring Officer and Standards Committee of the local authority for his continuing behaviour.

Nolan still applies to him as a councillor.

But that just encourages such disgraceful behaviour from school staff because it is achieving their aim of driving children out of their school, which for any child is a huge disruption and for a child with such disabilities would be horrendous. What needs to happen is that when school staff behave in such a manner there is far more scrutiny and the regulator investigates properly to ascertain whether it is justifiable and, if not, removes the school staff in question, strips them of their professional qualifications and fines the school and Local Authority (the equivalent of what regulators in other sectors would do for such malpractice and breaches of legislation and regulatory requirements).

I do see your point - but from the way the article was written, the impression I have is that the parents had no faith the school was meeting their child’s needs.

No, I’ve explained the reasons I think it may have happened in my first post, of which you quoted one half of one sentence.

Interesting article here as a contrast to those suggesting that parents can't even make the mildest comment before headteachers flip out and shut them down.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/calls-for-school-complaints-review-as-80-of-leaders-report-abuse/

I hope the police came in daylight, when the neighbours were home to see it all and in livered vehicles, let everyone know of the police involvement. These sort of people rely on the police using discreet, softly softly approach too often.

Violence knows no barriers of gender, creed, race or political affiliation.

Nobody is saying they shouldn’t. People just disagree that someone criticising the school constitutes “harassment”. Public services should receive scrutiny and often their behaviour is appalling, immoral and even illegal. Attempting to shut down any negative comments even in private conversations (whether in person or online) is unacceptable. There is no evidence of any “harassment” and presumably if there was the police would have proceeded with their investigation, and the school would have provided it to the journalists on a confidential basis to prevent this article being published. They didn’t, and their silence speaks volumes.

I have seen abusive posts in FB groups about teachers at the school I teach at. Some are misogynistic and sexually aggressive. It’s awful, and needs to be stopped.

You think that schools should provide parental emails to journalists? Really?

They weren't silent, they provided a perfectly reasonable statement about the volume of emails, and their staff being upset, and the fact that they took advice from the police.

And given that the guy works for the Times, do you really think the school could have prevented the article being published?

No it doesn't need to be stopped. It needs to be challenged, shown up and disagreed with.

What's that quote? I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"