Six parents of children attending Żabbar Primary School A have expressed support for a Year 2 teacher who was at the centre of a controversy after she disciplined a student by making him kneel down in the playground.
“She is a professional teacher who maintains discipline and who does not deserve all she has been going through,” the parents said in a letter to Education Minister Evarist Bartolo and to Malta Union of Teachers president Kevin Bonello.
The State school teacher was given a written warning last March after she admitted to making a six-year-old boy kneel down in the playground to be laughed at by other students.
The boy was offered counselling and psychological assistance by the school following the incident.
She… does not deserve all she has been going through
She continued teaching in the boy’s class, however, she was eventually replaced by a supply teacher after producing an open sick leave certificate.
Mr Bonello said yesterday the teacher was recently offered another “teaching-related job” that she accepted but was no longer in a primary school because there were no vacancies at this time of year. In the letter, posted on the MUT’s website, the parents noted that their children “loved” the teacher in question and were used to her method of teaching.
Thus, they would have liked her to continue teaching them this scholastic year.
The six parents said they were “irked” by the attention the media gave to the situation at the school. They said this had a negative impact on the reputation of both the school and the teacher.
The situation was brought to the media’s attention in March by an MEP election candidate.
Then, earlier this month, the MUT said the situation had become “untenable” and the teacher was not allowed to carry on with her job.
Mr Bonello had said the situation got out of hand because the teacher was dealing with a classroom that had about five children with behavioural problems. The March incident, he added, led to a situation where the boy felt the teacher could no longer discipline him and other children in the class picked up this attitude making the class unmanageable.
The MUT claimed that the boy’s parents “are apparently, and separately, threatening the teacher, the school and the college with a media press conference”. They “forcefully denied” such allegations.
The union ordered its members to stop speaking to the boy’s parents and warned that if the situation did not improve members would be directed to walk out when the boy was present.
Mr Bonello said yesterday the union was closely monitoring the situation and, so far, it did not feel the need to enforce any directives.