Disgusted by school’s response to complaint about pervy teacher

[SophEll]

I had a night out a few weeks ago with a friend. In a bar, we were approached by a man (who had a male friend with him) who started talking to us. He seemed quite drunk, but explained he recognised me from past parents evenings. At this point, I realised who he was - he taught one of my DC at their old school (they’ve since left). Out of nowhere, he said to me ‘I always used to imagine what it would have been like to bend you over that desk’. I was speechless, my friend said ‘excuse me’ and he replied ‘joking obviously’ and we walked off. My friend couldn’t believe what we had heard.

The following Monday, I checked the schools website which confirmed he was still teaching there. I followed the complaints procedure on their website and got a fairly blunt reply which was along the lines of, ‘sorry but as this happened outside of school and at a non school event, we are unable to review your complaint’. I challenged this - said surely it’s of interest to them and again they replied and also said it is outside of the remit for the DfE, and that they’d file any further correspondence from me without responding.

I was furious, as someone like that should not be teaching children in my view. Another friend says they think I can complain straight to Ofsted and they should take it seriously. I’ve also considered writing to my local paper about the schools dismissive response.

My DH thinks I need to drop it and that I’m just stressing myself out by taking it further - he thinks he will just deny the comment and that will be that, but he’ll be suitably embarrassed not to say something like that again.

AIBU to pursue this?

So one grown adult makes a shite pass at another grown adult and so his life should be completely fucked

God forbid you do something stupid when druck

Yes I’m aware. That made me more surprised not less. If this had been a thread about trucking or offshore workers it probably wouldn’t have jumped out to me, because I (perhaps wrongly) think of those sectors as less progressive than my own sectors and than teaching.

In your opinion it’s an overreaction. In my opinion and that of schools it’s inappropriate. If she named the school for instance, it would be brought into disrepute and all the kids affected by the implied culture of sexual impropriety. You’re not thinking it through.

I would be interested to know what else some of the posters commenting that the behaviour would bring the school into disrepute would review on the same light. I think it would be potentially hard for teachers to form relationships if taken to the extreme.

Also - he never said "whilst we held the Parent teacher meeting I was actually thinking about banging you over the desk"
He said he recognised you from the meeting and THEN said about imagining you bent over his desk

That does not mean it was at the same time. The imagining you over the desk might have been a private wank bank thought at home

‘Implied culture of sexual impropriety’.

you are really stretching this now . This is getting ridiculous.

he was drunk and made a stupid inappropriate comment he should have kept quiet about. The end.

That’s how I interpreted it as well unless the OP didn’t clearly quote him at the start. There is nothing to suggest that he wasn’t anything but professional at the parent’s evening

You insisted that an OP, who had temporarily removed his upset child from their family home (with him and his DC staying at his parents, for the night) had "kidnapped" his child.

While everyone else congratulated him on protecting his daughter, you screeched about how he was a kidnapper, and about how everyone else on the thread was disgusting (before flouncing after everyone called your bullshit out).

On this thread, possibly with a couple of exceptions (I'm not running a full audit), nobody is defending the teacher's behaviour - but the vast majority agree with the school, that it's not unprofessional behaviour of the sort that can result in formal disciplinary action. You, for some reason, cannot comprehend that distinction and, like the other thread, are resorting to calling other posters disgusting (while misrepresenting what they are actually saying).

Honestly, you really do conduct yourself in a consistently appalling manner.

The point is he isn't.

Whilst he made an unwanted sexual comment. He stupidly said it, then left OP alone. If the OP feels it's sexual harassment as mentioned in a PP, then she should consider reporting to the police, which won't get anywhere as there's no evidence and I highly doubt they'd feel it was a incident that needed pursuing.

If anything, the man/school can claim OP is the one harassing him at this point.

To me the key thing is what’s the nature of the relationship. Someone who is both a professional contact and a friend gets into much harder territory to judge. In this case there’s no ambiguity to me as there’s only the professional link there.

A PP just mentioned a good test: if OP named the school on this thread would it reflect badly on the school? In this case I think plainly yes. If OP and the teacher were in a relationship, I’d say no (absent any other info).

The point is it should stay private 🙄

why are we excusing these awful misogynistic men and just saying well it’s what men do. Well it shouldn’t be acceptable and men should be held accountable for their actions. It’s not right for men to walk about telling women about their sexual fantasies when it’s uninvited and making women feel in the very least extremely uncomfortable

we all have sexual desires/thoughts but we all know when it is and when it is not appropriate to share them

why is the bar so low for men’s behaviour towards women what is the message giving to younger generations of both boys and girls

There's also no evidence, so what exactly is the school going to do? Immediately believe your side of the story and punish him?

He could very easily turn around and say 'nah, didn't happen like that', and boom, 'investigation' over.

I meant kidnapping in the sense of forcibly abducting/ taking child away, without consent/ knowledge of child or mother. This is factually what that man did. Mother did not know where the child was and was begging for her to be brought back. Child also did not know why she had been taken to grandmas. No plan of when to return. I know that it is legal for either person with parental responsibility to do this. There are threads that pop on it all the time and it’s always an awful situation, police cannot intervene but family judges do not view it favourably when determining child custody arrangements. It was an absolute disgrace that posters were largely , as you say, “congratulating” that man for his outrageous behaviour.

im not sure how expressing a strong opinion on a mumsnet thread constitutes “screeching”, so again, no need for the misogyny.

Annnnnyyyyway. No need for this derail.

And so what

it’s addressed

or let’s just ignore because what some women lie or because in general we expect this from men and we accept it from men

It's not. It's not ok in the least!

But it's not a sackable offence that the OP seems to be pushing for.

What has he done illegally apart from be human at a nightclub?

@SophEll what would you like to see happen?
That would be disgusting behaviour from anyone. Some men, whether drunk or not, think they can say anything to a woman, and we should just smile and pretend to enjoy it.

my best mate is a teacher. Honestly the things she told me about what her colleagues got up to…. I was properly pearl clutching.
Obviously if I spilt the tea on those stories and named the school, it would look bad to the parents of that school and reflect badly on the whole school community.

but I won’t because it isn’t public information, much like this situation which was a a private interaction between the teacher and the OP.

Quite!

The point is that OP and others are implying this teacher isn't safe around children because he was having these thoughts whilst around said children

Maybe 2 posters have "excused" the man, most of us have said his comments were sleazy and unacceptable.

Out of curiosity, do you over-react every time something doesn't go your way and people don't agree with you, or are you especially bitter for some unknown reason at the moment?

You have studiously ignored hundred of messages explaining why you are over-reacting. Are you just miffed because the thread is not going the way you wanted it to go, and before having it deleted because privacy, you are taking your anger on a random man?

A lot of nonsense!

He said something inappropriate in a nightclub to an ex parent. Should he have his balls chopped off for trying his luck?

I can see you would be betraying your friend’s confidence if you did that. I can’t see what similar obligation the OP is under though. This wasn’t a friend, and the teacher can’t have imagined that she owed him confidentiality either formal or informal.

why are you making it a man problem?

I have heard (drunk) women being just as bad if not worst, and not all men look terribly comfortable when they were the chosen victims.

Ask any cop dealing with drunks on nights out, I am sure they all have similar stories to tell - ask male and female cops.

If it wasn't acceptable, the time to complain was at the bar there and then.