Templeogue College teacher says students had ‘run of the place’ as she claims victimisation after complaint

A Templeogue College teacher has claimed that a video of a colleague’s backside was taken in the corridor of the school and students felt they had the “run of the place”.

Spanish teacher Jennifer Clancy said discipline was a massive issue for staff and the catalyst for a group of them to sign a collective grievance.

She told a Workplace Relations Commission hearing on Tuesday morning that teachers had noticed a severe drop in disciplinary standards being enforced and there was a sense of lawlessness.

Ms Clancy alleges that she was penalised for signing a collective grievance signed by teachers raising 17 issues of concern at the school in February 2022.

One of the allegations was that teachers were being monitored on CCTV without their consent.

Templeogue College is a non-fee-paying boys’ secondary school under the patronage of the Spiritan religious order.

The teacher said their union suggested they sign the grievance document and present it to the principal Niamh Quinn in the hope of bringing about change in a positive way.

Ms Clancy, who has been teaching for 20 years, alleges that her working hours were altered after this to include more afternoon hours when she had no childcare.

She claimed the principal Tipp-exed her contract and sent it to the Department of Education without her consent. The teacher alleged changes had been made to remove “permanency” from her contract.

She said she was also told she was subject to a disciplinary complaint but was not told what it related to.

The teacher described an incident as one of the most serious of her career in which a student threw a phone at her when she tried to confiscate it.

She said the student “fired the phone across the room” from his seat and it struck her in the chest at her desk when she asked him to surrender it.

Ms Clancy said the student was given an internal suspension, which meant he served the suspension in the school building rather than at home.

She said the student, who had in essence assaulted her the previous day, was serving out his punishment while she was walking around the building and he was “there smirking at me”.

Ms Clancy said when she was waiting outside the principal’s office for a meeting following the incident, the student was standing nearby.

She claimed the principal emerged and walked to the student and took him by the shoulder.

Ms Clancy said the principal told the student, who the adjudication officer said must be referred to as X: “I love you X, but I have to speak to these teachers first.”

“I was horrified,” Ms Clancy said.

She said she wondered what hope any of them had if this was the way the principal spoke to a student who had just thrown a phone at her.

The teacher said another serious issue arose when a teacher was videoed from behind by a student.

She said her colleague heard that it had happened from another student and “fought and fought” to have it dealt with appropriately.

“To this day, she doesn’t feel it was,” she said. She claimed the student did not receive an appropriate sanction and it was a huge breach of dignity in the workplace.

She described another incident where a student told a teacher to “f*** off” in class, and claimed the principal brought the student back to the class where the incident had just happened for them to speak. On another occasion, a teacher’s laptop was accessed by students in the classroom who put comments on a digital app, she said.

When she told students to go to the principal’s office, she said one student welcomed the suggestion and said “we get cookies down there”.

She claimed it was not a safe working environment.

“Anything could happen,” she said. “It felt like it was a ticking timebomb in there.” She said staff did not feel they had the support of management when they had an issue.

She said she has an autoimmune disease and her condition flared up after she was “penalised” when her working hours were changed.

Ms Clancy said she later exhausted a grievance procedure that she found was very stressful and exhausting and she would never like to repeat again.

She said she had never engaged in a disciplinary process in the history of her teaching career.

The teacher said she was sick and found herself getting a letter informing her that she was being called to a disciplinary meeting and was at a “complete loss” why this was being invoked.

She said her working hours were changed, she had an “awful” meeting with the principal and was then hit with a disciplinary action that she had no details about.

Ms Clancy said she was “100pc sure” that the principal was willing to use “everything in her arsenal” against her.

Ms Clancy made a complaint under Protected Disclosures and Safety, Health and Welfare at Work legislation.

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