TEACHER’S DISMISSAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22318, 1 May 1947, Page 2

TEACHER’S DISMISSAL

RIGHT OF APPEAL ISSUE IMPORTANT DECISION (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 1. The power of the court to hear an appeal by a woman teacher against her alleged dismissal from the employ of the Canterbury Education Board was questioned by Mr. C. S. Thompson, who appeared for the board, in a case in the teachers’ court of appeal yesterday on the grounds that the appellant, Eva M. Chillingworth, was a relieving teacher and had not actually been dismissed. Mr. Thompson contended that a relieving teacher could not be classed as a teacher who had the right of appeal, and that the “notice of refusal to reappoint” could not be taken as a notice of dismissal.

The appellant’s counsel, Mr. A. Fordyce, said his client was a teacher as her name had been on the Gazette roll for a number of years. The refusal to reappoint did amount to dismissal. The case was an important one as far as the rights of teachers were concerned, he said, Mr. Thompson remarked that the Act would be very difficult to administer if relieving teachers had the right of appeal. After a retirement the court. Mr. H. P. Lawrey, S.M., Mr. W. C. Colee, teachers’ representative,, and Mr. C. N. Haslam, the board's representative, declared that the appallant was a teacher under the definition laid down by the Education Act. The court’s opinion on the second point was that the intimation that she would not be engaged in future constituted dismissal by the board, the onus being on it to justify the dismissal. Evidence of the standard of the appellant's work, much of which had been as a relieving teacher since 1938, was given by school inspectors and headmasters. Several stated that she was temperamentally unsuited to the teaching of small children. Though discipline was poor and classes inattentive, the appallant was well informed and co-operative, it was stated. The appeal was dismissed.