Federation action leads to major enrolment changes

By Bob Lipscombe

The Department of Education and Training (DET) has announced new enrolment procedures for students in NSW public schools and TAFE colleges.

Arising from Federation's successful prosecution of DET over its failure to protect the health and safety of teachers at Dover Heights High School, a pending judgement in a second prosecution and a campaign by the Federation, these procedures have the potential to make a major contribution to the health and safety of both students and teachers.

The changes are set out in Legal Issues Bulletin No 40 issued to all schools and TAFE colleges on May 17. Although the Legal Issues Bulletin is headed "Collection, use and disclosure of information about students with a history of violence", it spells out clearly the procedures that must be followed when any current DET student is seeking enrolment in any other DET school or TAFE college or when an existing student is violent. Importantly, it also provides clear procedures to be followed when a student is seeking enrolment from a Department of Community Services or Juvenile Justice institution, a private school or interstate.

Legal Issues Bulletin No 40 makes it clear that:

• Violence is not restricted to physical acts. It includes "threats to commit violence, aggressive behaviour which is non-contact in nature and may also include offensive, aggressive or abusive language directed to staff or students".
• Staff must be provided with all relevant information about any risk they may be exposed to and be "provided with any information necessary to ensure the employee's health and safety". This includes new teachers, casual teachers and support staff as appropriate.
• "Staff must be consulted at all stages of the risk assessment process."
• Advice and resources can be sought from the Region via the School Education Director.
• A student seeking to transfer from one DET school to another DET school is not allowed to attend "until the relevant student records from the previous school have been received and any risk assessment considered necessary is completed, and appropriate solutions, including control strategies, are commenced".
• If a student is seeking enrolment from a private school or interstate and there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the student has a history of violence, enrolment is not to be completed if parents do not give permission to obtain records or if the private/interstate school declines to provide the information. In such circumstances the matter is to be referred to the regional DET office to resolve. Similar arrangements also apply to access information held by the Department of Community Services, Juvenile Justice, Health or similar agency.
• TAFE colleges can, with student's permission, access DET and private school records where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the student has a history of violence. If a student declines to provide permission the enrolment has to be rejected.
• Information must be obtained and risk assessment occur if violence occurs at anytime after a student is enrolled in a school or TAFE college, regardless of the initial assessment.
• School counsellors must provide relevant information about violent students. When doing so to meet obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, there is no breach of privacy or of professional ethics.
• Principals and TAFE institute managers must ensure "that any violence related incidents occurring in schools or institutes are full [sic] documented and the records retained."

The timing of the publication of Legal Issues Bulletin 40 is interesting. It comes after the DET's conviction on March 31, 2006 in the Dover Heights prosecution, but before the court hearing on penalty.

While the changes announced by the DET, as a whole, represent a significant improvement on past policy and practice, Federation does have concerns about some aspects. These include possible workload implications for principals and teachers and resource implications for schools. Also of concern are the method by which DET will achieve the efficient transfer of student records between schools and the responsibilities of DET officers outside of the school to facilitate this. These matters will be pursued.

To assist members, Federation will provide advice to schools and TAFE colleges on the implementation of the procedures contained in Legal Issues Bulletin No 40. Also provided will be updated advice to assist members to ensure that DET takes appropriate action to address incidents of violence, including persistent verbal abuse in the workplace. This will include information from occupational health and safety prosecutions of DET. Nevertheless, members should not hesitate to contact Federation for advice and support on matters, including workload and resource issues, arising from the implementation of the procedures where they cannot be satisfactorily resolved within the workplace.

The improvements in enrolment procedures are just the latest in a series of occupational health and safety improvements largely achieved through a combination of political, industrial and legal action by Federation and its members. These improvements include the establishment of new emotionally disturbed/behaviour disordered classes and units, suspension centres, the program to allocate aides to all special education classes, an improved suspension and expulsion policy, additional staffing in schools to address specific identified occupational health and safety issues and the provision of enhanced security in many schools.

Bob Lipscombe is the Senior Vice President.

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June 2006 contents