A Dunedin parent says he is appalled his son’s school issued a school-wide “detention” after a clean-up failed to meet the principal’s standards. But the principal says the “detention” was simply a talk to students that lasted, at most, 15 minutes and was to remind students to take pride in their environment. The principal said any allegations of communal punishment was not the case. Last Monday, Kaikorai Valley College students were asked to clean the school before their open day began that evening. Parent Daniel Free said his son picked up large amounts of rubbish, as did many other students. Despite this, his son and the entire school were all spoken to by the principal Jatin Bali. “My kid was absolutely livid . . . it’s incredibly unfair.” He said Mr Bali told students there was still litter around the sheds and outside the courts. Mr Free was told by his son all the students had detention in the school hall together as a result. “An old saying of ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ has been proven true in this case.” Mr Free was also worried the students had not been told to wear gloves, what to do if they came across hazardous material such as glass and had no hand-washing stations to clean themselves up afterwards. Mr Bali said it was not a detention and instead students were bought into the hall 10 minutes before lunch so he could speak to them about properly disposing of rubbish and taking pride in their environment. “The talk started during the lesson before lunch and went approximately 5 minutes into the break,” he said. They were not asked to go clean up more rubbish after the discussion, but were instead sent out to their normal scheduled break and reminded that there were bins for them to use. Addressing Mr Free’s concerns about hand-washing stations, he said every bathroom had soap and water for students to use. Mr Free had decided to send a letter to the board of trustees and report the school to WorkSafe for failing to provide PPE, instruction and hand-washing stations to student’s cleaning. A WorkSafe spokeswoman said they would be advising Mr Free to first speak with the school’s board of trustees and if he was not satisfied, to contact the Ministry of Education. Mr Bali was not aware of the report and had not been contacted by WorkSafe. laine.priestley@odt.co.nz
