My high school’s sordid past
July 24th, 2006First semester is now over and I’m sitting on a High Distinction average. That’s the good news. The bad news is that semester two has also started, and the work is coming thick and fast.
Check out Burgess v. Board of Teacher Registration Queensland. I’m coming to this issue a little late in the game, but it turns out that a former headmaster at my high school had his teacher’s registration cancelled a couple of years ago. He (the appellant) had previously pled guilty to two counts of unlawful carnal knowledge pertaining to one of his pupils - a 13 year old girl, and the judge remarked that he was “very lucky to escape a custodial sentence“. The appellant moved to Queensland shortly thereafter, and Queensland law at the time didn’t require teachers to disclose un-recorded convictions when applying for registration. As a result - the appellant was able to continue practicing his profession for a further 23 years (2 of which overlapped with my time at his school) before Queensland finally struck him off in 2002.
The law in Queensland has now, mercifully, been changed and to my lay reading it appears that such an oversight would be impossible today. This whole saga does have me questioning my judgement of the guy though. In the 2 years that I was at that school while he was at the helm I really had no idea this was going on.
