School damaged bike

[BertyFlanter]

I'm braving AIBU because I really don't think I am but willing to be told different. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible but 😬

So my son has started cycling to school, year 7. He got a new bike for Christmas that is his pride and joy and he looks after it.
He parks it in the bike shed at school all locked up. Apparently there is an issue with some kids just dumping their bikes and making it hard for everyone to park. So the deputy head has decided to make his point by stacking all the excess bikes on top of the properly parked ones to inconvenience the students. As a result my sons saddle has a slice right through it which is going to cost £60 to replace!

I called the school to discuss with said teacher, who admitted to me that he had done that but that if he paid for the repair it would set a precedent and he'd have to pay for all repairs. I pointed out it would only be the ones he was directly responsible for. After some back and forth that apparently no cctv covers the area to prove it was ok when locked away (there is cctv at my end to prove it was perfect setting off) he then decided he must have fallen off his bike and is just coincidentally blaming him. I suggested someone other than him (conflict of interest) investigate further and maybe ask the six kids who were with him all the way to school and check the cctv just in case. He came back an hour later having had one chat with my son for a minute and said it was more likely than not the bike had been damaged by him but that he still would not pay for the repair.
I now have to go to the chair of governors to make a formal complaint, but "he already knows" it won't do me any good.

AIBU to take this further? For clarity my calls are recorded (work phone) so I have all this available as proof, along with the separate call from the business manager who was adamant the staff never stack bikes for this reason, before she knew I'd had the chat with the deputy head.

TLDR: AIBU to expect the school to pay for damage as a result of their negligence?

If the teacher was so busy then he wouldn't have had time to precariously stack bikes. I get teachers are busy but it doesn't give them divine right to damage others property.

Have you not heard anything yet, op? FWIW, I agree entirely with you. Needs sorting out.

@Mamato2gorgeousboys I appreciate what you are saying, but he's REALLY not that kind of teacher. Much closer to the description earlier on in the thread. The one who enjoys the title and just enough power.

And of course I don't want him on his knees begging, but a little respect and humility would have gone a long way.

I haven't explained my financial situation on this thread but it could very easily put me in the position of being awake at night wondering where I am going to get the money from vs telling my son he has to go back to a 45 minute walk to school through no fault of his own (the saddle is usable for now but it won't take long to get wet and become unusable).
We all have our own problems and if he was a compassionate teacher as described he would have been a little more empathetic to the financial burden he has put on a family he knows nothing of.

What a load of tosh! The deputy head could be the pope himself, it doesn’t matter. He made an error of judgement which has led to personal property being damaged. He (and the school which has vicarious liability) are obliged to compensate OP’s son for his negligence

Although I do have to say that my own bike seat has a rip in the cover, but it is far from unusable even if it’s raining. If the bike is always parked under cover, the seat will not soak up any rainwater as your son will be sitting on the rip as he rides.
Nevertheless he is entitled to a replacement at the school’s expense

Op - I genuinely do feel for you and your situation. I would be angry too if something were to cost me £60 due to no fault of my own, especially if it were to impact my ds in the negative way you have just mentioned. 95% of pp have agreed with you, I was just offering another perspective. I do hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction as it’s an unpleasant situation for all involved.

Yo

@PetPeter - Yes, people make mistakes. You included I assume? What exactly is a load of old tosh?

Thanks @Mamato2gorgeousboys I appreciate another view and hope my reply didn't come across as rude

Put a plastic bag over the saddle to keep the water out for now. Get a second hand saddle - price is unrelated to comfort with saddles - more expensive ones tend to be less comfy if anything - you pay more to get a light weight saddle generally rather than for comfort.

@BertyFlanter Not at all I hope mine didn’t come across as rude either as that really wasn’t my intention. Good luck - keep us updated with the resolution.

Urgh, I am so not looking forward to DS starting school. OP you have my sympathy!

Motherwol if I were to hit your car and say take off the wing mirror, would you be happy if I stuck One from a Reliant Robin on there because it's cheaper?
Or would you wish to be put back in the position you were in before the accident?

As a secondary teacher, I have to say, Mamas description of what deputy heads do rings no bells with me. They're often power hungry, arrogant and used as the 'enforcers' while they're waiting for the throne. They don't do all that coal face stuff.

But as pp said, if he was the pope himself it wouldn't make him in the right here.

I'm also an ex secondary school teacher, and the kind of deputy head who develops a personal obsession with something like bike parking and "takes the law into his own hands" in this petty way is a well known "type" in secondary schools, an arrogant, officious, probably smarmy strutting bantom-cockerel type and best understood from LolaSmiles 's post, not the selfless teacher-as-vocation mama describes, who also most certainly exists but is more likely to be a head of year or have no "title" parents would be aware of beyond being a form tutor and classroom teacher, not a deputy head.

I guess you'll never know whether your DS was one of those dumping their bikes? I feel like I want to support the school and the Deputy Head but can also see how the way the bike situation was dealt with was less than ideal ... you can just hear the beastly teenagers saying things like: "Sir my mother's making you pay"; "Whose in trouble now" as most parents and their teens will be far too unprofessional to deal with things confidentially ... possibly it's caused by teens dallying en route and being at a rush to make it into school for registration.

Maybe the school could have sent a letter home highlighting the issue as presumably dumped bikes will also cause damage.

Maybe they could request names on all bikes to help identify "dumped" but there could be teens who would move properly stored bikes.

Maybe they could review whether they want bikes on the premises if it is such a big issue.

If the bike had been damaged out of school what would you do?

Haven't rtft but if be really really surprised having worked in a number of secondary schools, if they're was no CCTV on t the area

They could have confiscated all the incorrectly parked bikes and locked them up so the offenders have to come and request them back. Or the offenders parents. That is what our school do with phones (although admittedly smaller items). I now have an image of the deputy head from classes dismissed in my head!

He made a ridiculous decision to stack the bikes. He made a mistake, hold his hands up to it and pay up.

OP I'm thinking at least one child will have a photo of the bikes. Get DS to ask around. I'd be surprised if their wasn't more bikes damaged by stacking them like that.

Even if a kid had dumped their bike on the ground why should the DHT get away with causing damage? Are the bike sheds big enough for the number of bikes?

Just because someone parks their car like a muppet doesn't give others the right to bash the car out the way.

@Hepsibar the DepH has admitted my sons bike was parked properly and locked up. It wasn't one of the 15 stacked bikes it was underneath. He's only year 7, it was apparently all the older kids that had abandoned their bikes. Ds is still in the novelty of high school is great can't wait to get there with his mates so is always one of the first larked up.

If his bike had been damaged out of school I would just take it on the chin. However if it had been damaged out of school by say a neighbour who I had seen in cctv doing so I would expect neighbour to pay and take them to court. If I know and can prove more likely than not (on his own admission) that it was DepH why would I pay?

I don't believe there is no cctv either, it's the staff car park they are in, moved there because of a spate of thefts but put in a convenient blind spot 🤔

Good luck OP. I completely agree with you. As you've said, the "at your own risk" signs do not absolve someone of responsibility for damaging your property whether it's a bike at school or the teacher's car in a car park. The price of the saddle is irrelevant. The damage was caused by what was essentially, a grown man's tantrum at other children not following the rules.

No doubt this ridiculous strategy of throwing improperly parked bikes into piles on top of the parked bikes will have ceased the instant you made your complaint because let's face it, the teacher KNOWS what he did was wrong and stupid. The fact he'll have stopped doing it is just another proof of his liability. If he wasn't doing anything wrong then why stop? If you don't receive a suitable response from the HT then I'd probably add that piece of info to my formal complaint too.

Yanbu

I’m just posting to say to OP that you shouldn’t settle for a lesser priced saddle, one that doesn’t match the bike itself. Your son was not at fault and shouldn’t have to suffer any consequences. Good luck.

Update! Today when I arrived home I had a letter from the school. It was a cheque along with a letter of denial...they circled the wagons as expected.

The letter said that DepH had nothing to do with stacking the bikes, therefore didn't investigate their own actions. He said it was all the site supervisor, but on the call he couldn't have been prouder of his actions.
It also said another child may have damaged the bike and there is no cctv in the bike sheds. It didn't address his attitude or any of the other issues but did enclose a cheque as "a gesture of good will".

I consider the matter closed now as all I wanted was the seat replacing. If DepH ever feels the need to take it out on my son at a later date then I will always have the recordings up my sleeve. And if the head is happy to have someone with so little integrity working beneath her more fool her. It will likely bite her on the bum in the future, but hey that's her problem!