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?

You sound a bit unhinged. What a sad post.

Basically, it's a witch hunt.

I wasn’t going to comment on this thread any more, but @EntropyCentralsaid two things that I feel needs to be commented on out of the context of this thread. She said-

“Rapists are furtive and would not draw attention”

This is absolutely not true.And a very dangerous way to think.

She also said “he effectively apologised by saying obviously he was joking”. Which is straight out of the victim blamer’a handbook.

Total power trip.

Exactly this! ⬆️

It is indeed. However, he clearly did not pursue the issue, however sleazy his behaviour initially had been.
What do you think should happen to him?
Should he be professionally disciplined?
Lose his job?

How long ago?

I still stand by my post that we will never find the outcome
because this is not the school’s issue
and the op won’t update us

I can’t imagine what the OP’s dh has had to endure over the years

Absolutely. He did not say he fantasised about rape.

Did you notice I said that these things were important outside the context of this thread?

Absolutely this. I have been on the receiving end of this type of type of thing and worse. Some people have actually been harassed and sexually assaulted and the OP"s comments are insulting.

I understand it's upsetting but it's really not worth ruining a person's career over. Most of us have said really stupid, embarrassing things when under the influence. He is probably mortified (I would hope) & already stressed that you contacted the school. You've made a complaint. It's on record. Hopefully that has made an impact on how this teacher speaks to people in future.

Did you notice that I was interested in how you felt the school ought to act?

I think this is a very good point. If he's otherwise got a good record and is a blameless character, he'll have been anxious about the complaint, and will reflect on his behaviour.
If he is some sort of serial abuser, then it's been flagged up.

“violates dignity” is one possible test. The bar for sexual harassment is practically very low in the equality act. Which is why it is dealing with civil remedies.
You appear to be disputing the matter of it not being a criminal standard, I would be interested on your basis for that. If you are looking for criminal harassment with the aggravating factor of sex you are looking for a higher bar than the OP has offered.

That escalated quickly...

About 95% of the population would laugh it off, and quickly forget about it. Not the OP, apparently, who seems to be on some kind of holy crusade. About 30 years ago, a female maths teacher was sleazing all over my mate in a boozer one Friday night. She used to teach us. We were in our late 20s, and she was probably in her early to mid 40s. Did we want her disciplined by the school (where she still worked) ? No, because it never occurred to us to be so petty about meaningless, harmless nonsense.

Edit: typo.

You clearly have no idea what “abuse of power” means.
Someone who used to teach your child years earlier has no power over you.

Have you met teachers at parents evenings? Highly unlikely to be thinking nay more than "I want to get this over with to get home."

He is later claiming that he was obsessing over her it sounds like it was made up in the bar to give him something to say.

Please stop pretending that you don't want to ruin his life. You said yourself you don't think someone like that should be teaching.

If a popular teacher gets sacked you and your family should expect an angry response from local parents. If you go to the papers you will be a laughing stock. You could prevent this if you just drop it.

Why on earth would local parents be angry? That’s a bit OTT!

Because if he's a good teacher and their children have built up a rapport with him, and then he suddenly disappears because of something perfectly legal (albeit it gross) that happened out of school time, away from school premises with someone no longer connected to the school...you can't see why people might be angry? There's a huge recruitment and retention crisis in schools at the moment, and if also be concerned tbay instead of focusing on educating the children, the school have had to waste time dealing with this, going through recruitment for a new teacher and so on.

The OTT was your response to this. I hope for your sake you're not really pursuing this and you're just hyping MNetters up, because the whole thing makes you look a bit pathetic TBH.

But why would he disappear when we have had 39 pages of employment law experts telling me he has done nothing wrong?

Personally, I would be happy if I was a parent to learn how my DC’s school responds to complaints about inappropriate sexual behaviour which references the school classroom.

If I was a parent there I wouldn't be happy that attention seekers like you are starting hate campaigns over a drunken comment that has nothing at all to do with the school, a school which you are not involved in any way with in some crazy attempt to ruin someone's career. I'd be pissed off that this may mean yet another good teacher leaving the profession and my children's education suffering because of it.