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Cover-up principal picked up by ministry

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nitpicker1
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« on: December 19, 2011, 07:02:33 am »


Principal failed to act on teacher kissing pupil
Last updated 05:00 17/12/2011

... The girl, who was ''scantily clad'', invited him into her home. They lay down on a mattress together, where they kissed.

A brother-in-law of the girl arrived to find the two together and hit Mr Mutu in the mouth.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6155015/Principal-failed-to-act-on-teacher-kissing-pupil



Cover-up principal picked up by ministry
NZ Newswire
December 19, 2011, 7:17 am

A Northland Maori immersion school principal who resigned after she ignored a report that her husband, also a teacher at the school, kissed a 15-year-old student, was later picked up for lucrative work at the Ministry of Education.

Deborah Mutu and her husband Hone have been deregistered for serious misconduct and ordered to pay $20,000 each in costs, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Ms Mutu resigned as principal at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Kaikohe in 2008 after her husband was suspended by the school's board of trustees the previous year.

The Teachers' Council, following a disciplinary hearing, in a decision released last week, said Mr Mutu favoured some students and would buy them presents, allow plagiarism and take them for rides in his car during school hours.

In 2004 he visited one 15-year-old student at her home, lay with her on a mattress and kissed her.

Ms Mutu was told about the incident and others involving her husband, but told the hearing that she did not believe her husband could behave that way. Ms Mutu ordered staff to tear up the written complaint of the 15-year-old.

Ms Mutu - since separated from her husband - was then employed in February by the Ministry of Education as one of 46 "experts" paid to advise principals.

A ministry spokesman told the Herald Ms Mutu was seconded from another organisation, but that was terminated when the ministry became aware of the disciplinary proceedings.

In October, Labour's education spokeswoman Sue Moroney questioned then education minister Anne Tolley about Ms Mutu's appointment in parliament.

But Ms Tolley dismissed the question as "muck-raking" and said Ms Mutu had never been suspended from her job. She had been seconded after the ministry had done "extensive research into the background of the over-500 applicants" for roles, Ms Tolley said at the time.

Newly appointed Education Minister Hekia Parata said the ministry had since put in place a rigorous process for secondments.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/12397806/cover-up-principal-picked-up-by-ministry/



background:

Kura head suspended
By Stephen Cook
5:00 AM Sunday Mar 2, 2008

 The head of New Zealand's kura kaupapa movement is facing questions over his behaviour towards teenage students at a Maori immersion school in the Far North.

Allegations against respected Maori educator Hone Mutu have sparked at least two separate inquiries - one ordered by the Ministry of Education and the other an investigation by the school's board. ...

read more at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10495550
 



 
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2011, 09:51:25 am »


....and Anne Tolley (in typical Nats fashion) mislead Parliament when she was asked questions about it in her capacity of Minister of Education.

Misleading Parliament is almost a hanging offence.

I guess the opening of Parliament this week will become extremely entertaining when Opposition MPs start making accusations that the new Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections is a teller of falsehoods to Parliament (they're not allowed to call her a LIAR even though in this case she actually IS a LIAR, so they'll no doubt find other creative ways to call her a LIAR without actually saying the LIAR word).

I guess that will mean that Jonkey will have to swallow a dead rat and get rid of his bent/corupt Minister of Police and Minister of Corruptions or have the entire National government bogged down in corruption allegations before they have even introduced a single piece of legislation.

Winston will be absolutely in his element chucking shit at Anne Tolley and Jonkey and the Nats in general over this.

I wish I wasn't working this week...I'd be in Parliament's public gallery to watch the fun of the Nats squirming before they've even really started.
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2011, 07:43:16 pm »


Editorial: Saga exposes poor form from Tolley

The Dominion Post | 5:00AM - Tuesday, 27 December 2011

ON OCTOBER 06, the last question day before the general election, then Minister of Education Anne Tolley was asked why she had denied reports that a Ministry of Education adviser had previously been suspended while a school principal. Her answer reflects no credit on Mrs Tolley, now the Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections, and even less on the ministry. She said the reports were untrue. The principal, Deborah Mutu, had never been suspended.

As is now known, that answer was, at best, misleading, and, at worst, deceitful.

In September 2007, Mrs Mutu was placed on leave by the board of Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Kaikohe, while allegations of serious misconduct against her and her husband, John Mutu, a fellow teacher, were investigated.

Whether being placed on leave is different from being suspended is a matter of semantics. The school board clearly had concerns about her fitness to continue in her role, concerns that were borne out last week, when the Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal found Mrs Mutu and her now former husband guilty of serious misconduct, stripped them of their practising certificates, ordered each to pay costs of $20,000 and took the rare step of naming them.

As Minister of Education, Mrs Tolley could not be expected to monitor the performance of every teacher. But before putting their reputations on the line, it is politic for ministers to assure themselves that the information they are being given is based on solid foundations. Mrs Tolley did not do that. Not only did she mislead Parliament about Mrs Mutu's background, but she also baldly asserted that the ministry had extensively researched the backgrounds of all those who applied for the "student achievement practitioner" positions to which Mrs Mutu was appointed this year. Nothing could be further from the truth.

At the time of her appointment, Mrs Mutu was facing a raft of accusations. They included: failing to ensure that an allegation her husband behaved inappropriately towards a 15-year-old female student was properly investigated, instructing staff to destroy a written statement from the girl, blaming her for the incident, further victimising her and failing to act on concerns that school staff were playing favourites. She was also accused of failing to inform the board of a number of serious matters. Included among them were that the school's NCEA accreditation was at risk, that students' work was not being adequately assessed, that the school's finances were deteriorating and that students were engaging in plagiarism.

It is hard to imagine a person less well qualified to advise other schools, unless it is Mr Mutu himself who admitted entering the home of a scantily clad 15-year-old student while she was alone and lying on a mattress with her.

That the ministry is so out of touch with what is occurring in the education sector should be a matter of concern for the new minister, Hekia Parata. The ministry failed her predecessor, but worse, it failed students.

For Mrs Tolley, the affair should serve as an object lesson about the importance of testing advice provided by officials. Reputations are hard won, but easily lost.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/6191383/Editorial-Saga-exposes-poor-form-from-Tolley
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« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2011, 04:10:13 pm »



She said the reports were untrue. The principal, Deborah Mutu, had never been suspended.


from what I read about it, Deborah Mutu actually resigned. 

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« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2012, 02:51:57 pm »



update: my bolding emphasis


Ministry fails to check out $1m building botch up
 By Nicholas Jones

5:30 AM Monday May 14, 2012
 
The Ministry of Education did not fully investigate how nearly $1 million of funding resulted in only three substandard classrooms being built at a Northland school.
 
Ministry officials believed $986,926 had been used by Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Kaikohe to build six new classrooms in 2005.
 
But in 2009 a consultant found only three classrooms had been built, documents released to the Herald under the Official Information Act show.
 
Certificates provided by the school were accepted as the only evidence classrooms were complete.
 
The classrooms that were built did not meet council building standards, and required months of remedial work.
 
A subsequent review by the ministry's internal auditor, Bruce Ferguson, found:
 
* A question over whether a $232,150 payment was legitimate.
* An invoice value altered by hand.
* Other invoices unclear and without supporting documentation
* A lack of a tender process for work carried out.

But an independent review or legal action was ruled out, partly because of apparent gaps in documentation kept by the local Whangarei office and "its role in monitoring property activity".
 
Education Minister Hekia Parata said lessons from this "historic experience" would benefit the ministry's property management processes.
 
A spokesman said changes in 2007 meant school build projects were now led by a professional project manager.
 
The project manager for the 2005 work was Hone Mutu, then a senior staff member at the school and husband of then-principal Deborah Mutu.
 
Of $986,926 of classroom funding, $232,150 was spent to commission designs for a new gymnasium and pool complex with a value of around $4 million which was never built.
 
In 2009, Mr Ferguson was asked to consider legal action over the payment. But further investigation showed its Whangarei office had approved two contradicting plans for the work, one including a gymnasium.
 
Some work invoices had no GST number, inconsistencies on tax rates, lacked information on contractors and one was altered by hand.
 
"We saw little sign of dialogue between the [local office] and the [board of trustees] around expectations of processes to be followed which would ensure good management of what was a significant project," Mr Ferguson wrote.
 
He criticised Mr Mutu being left in charge of nearly $1 million two years after he led a wharekura building project at the school which had to be rescued after a budget blowout.
 
In 2007 Mrs Mutu was put on leave and eventually resigned after covering up complaints against her husband, who was suspended by a new board of trustees after an incident in 2004.
 
Mr Mutu had been found lying on a mattress under a blanket with a 15-year-old student at her house, and he and Mrs Mutu were deregistered for serious misconduct following a Teachers Council hearing last year.
 
Despite the investigation into Mrs Mutu's conduct, she worked for the Ministry of Education as an "expert" paid to advise principals.
 
The ministry later said Mrs Mutu had failed to disclose the seriousness of the allegations against her and its secondment process would be made more rigorous.
 
Mrs Mutu was seconded from Te Runanga Nui, the national body of Kura Kaupapa Maori schools then headed by her husband.

 By Nicholas Jones

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10805674

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