Two years of hell

1990 was hell because of the actions of Bob Cross, the Principal of South Fremantle Senior High School.

Education Department policy encouraging students to write complaints about teachers to which the teacher had to respond was manipulated by Bob Cross to put me under severe stress. It arose because of the school allowing any students to join a gifted and talented class I was teaching.

The Science Superintendent Malcolm Crosbie supported Bob Cross in his persecution of me by inspecting my classroom teaching and writing a false report.

1991 was hell after April because my wife took the opportunity to leave me together with the two younger children. I was only back in WA because my children were being taken back there by my wife irrespective of whether I went with them. Losing my children was devastating. The wife was much less of a loss but still a loss.

My girlfriend who had deliberately got pregnant the previous November only saw me on a few occasions before she had our baby boy on August 24^th.

The losing my career at the end of the year because a student got upset that I had decided to take long service leave the following year and spend it in America and set up a situation about which she could tell several lies which were unfortunately believed by the superintendent.

When I went to the Education Department after my dismissal I was told I would be given $250,000. I definitely wanted to stay sacked. I worked hard in my position as Head of Physical Science and did a better job than many contemporaries but it was not appreciated by my employer or his representatives, the principals. Max McDonald at Armadale SHS in his departing comments did not refer to me having text material produced for the lower school science students which had been necessitated by the change in the curriculum.

I would like the money I was told I was due updated to current value because the actions of the Education Department employees in believing a lying student meant I have not had a job in Australia for over twenty years despite hundreds of applications and losing my house in Bateman which was on an 1120 m² block where I was going to build a second home.

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The following was sent as a claim on the Education Department of Western Australia for monies owing from 1991 following my wrongful dismissal. Obviously it was not resolved.

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History of Maxwell Partington 1979 to 1992

1979

I was in Queensland teaching. I returned to WA for a Jaycees conference. I found that the farm at Denmark had increased in value when I went to see it.

1980

I wanted to buy a business in Queensland. I sold the farm I had at Denmark. My wife then decided that she was taking the children and returning to WA. It was not what I wanted to do, as I wanted to stay in Queensland where we had put a deposit on an old block of flats on a very large block across the road from the beach in Redcliffe near Brisbane. I accompanied her otherwise I would not have the children with me. It turned out she had organised a job for me with the Education Dept.

1981

I began work at Hollywood SHS.

I was depressed for the next 3 years.

1984

I spent the year at Nedlands College of Advanced Education teaching trainee teachers Physics and Geology.

1985

I spent the year at Melville SHS teaching Physics, Chemistry and Computing. The last was new to me and required an enormous amount of work as well as having to buy a Commodore 64 computer and associated equipment to prepare student exercises at home.

1986 - 1989

I began work at Armadale SHS as Head of Physical Science.

In April I bought a milk round to help the family income as the previous Christmas there had not been $120 to buy a guitar for my second son. It would also provide work for the children as they got older. The oldest was able to start soon after buying it.

The following writing fits in at this point in the tale.

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I was a teacher of science and computing at Melville Senior High School in Western Australia in 1985. I was studying at WAIT, the Western Australian Institute of Technology, doing a Post Graduate Diploma in Science Education.

As the computing teacher at the school I had replaced the previous teacher who had been very unwillingly been sent to teach in the country. Consequently he had removed all the teaching aids he had been using in his classes and I was left with a bare cupboard so to speak.

I had not taught computing before but felt that I should be conversant with the area. I had done several computing units at University. At The University of Queensland I had done a unit which involved producing programs in 1979. This involved using a 2B pencil to fill in little rectangles on small cards which were then fed into a card reader by staff at the university. A fault in the program you had written meant marking replacement cards and having it read again. I lived in Ipswich which was 40 km from the university and only went there once or twice a week. Consequently producing a program which worked was a lengthy process. I did not shine as a programmer and ended up given a pass as long as I did not try doing any more computing.

When I returned to Western Australia a couple of years later I did a couple of units at WAIT as part of my initial studies which were in a Post Graduate Diploma in Physics. Things had improved and input was via a keyboard talking to a mainframe so feedback was immediate and the only problem was getting time on the keyboard. Hence I had more success.

I changed from Physics to Science Education studies in 1984 when I had found it impossible to complete a unit requiring me to produce a computer program capable of doing graphics on the computer screen. By now I had used the linear accelerator to bombard materials with high speed particles and make new nuclei. These were radioactive and had to be handled with care but the study was very interesting. I had also used electron microscopes to produce extremely magnified images of objects we had prepared. When a fellow student pointed out that as a high school teacher I would not be using such a device in my life ever again I was depressed for months.

A part of my studies in 1985 was a research project. It was the second project. A smaller one I had done earlier on whether students who were more interested in science got better results. Surprisingly I discovered, as others had before, that they didn’t. The analysis of the results meant using a program SPSS, the Statistical Program for the Social Sciences. Again to access the program meant gaining time on a keyboard to talk to the mainframe. My main project was a survey of science teachers and a whole lot of questions I got them to answer. The results were analysed using SPSS. It was a lengthy piece of work and took many hours on the computer terminal. The actual writing of the report I did on a Commodore 64. Because my predecessor at Melville SHS had taken everything I needed exercises on the computer for the students. I had to make my own. Unfortunately the school would not help with supplying a computer for me to use at home as it was going to take too many hours producing exercises for me to remain at school and I had to buy my own. The school used Commodore 64 computers so I had to buy one of these. This was a significant financial outlay. With all the additional features such as a printer the total cost was over $2,200. The big disadvantage was that the files from these computers could not be read by IBM compatible computers. Hence my research project would need to be completely retyped on an IBM compatible machine when I finished.

Then we get to the end of the year and the problem is money. There isn’t any. My younger son wants a $120 guitar for Christmas and there is not enough money for it. The project needs rewriting and there is no money. I had gained a promotion in my job and was going to start 1986 as Head of Physical Science at Armadale SHS. The children, boy, girl, boy, were getting old enough to need an after school job. I had the delusional idea that the family that works together stays together. When you were married to a woman of the type I was that statement is completely untrue. Rejection was my wife’s forte.

A business that could be conducted simultaneously with teaching. A business that could be expanded to mean I did not have to teach any more. A milkround that could start as household deliveries and be transformed into shop deliveries seemed the answer.

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Computers at Armadale Senior High School and student texts

When computers were offered to Armadale SHS I got the Science Dept to teach the courses based on my delight with the subject in 1985. I had all teachers take at least one class and helped them with the subject. The Business Studies teacher needed help which I gave her and had her students use Wordstar to put the old science books from the Education Department onto floppy disks. I knew that having material on file would be useful in making worksheets for lower school science and I did use it to make many of them.

As Head of Physical Science when Scitech opened I had a train pick up all the Year 9 students from the siding below the school and take them there and back.

When I arrived at the school the Physical Science staff were working in an unacceptable staff room which I eventually had replaced by a suitable work area. Jim Fuller found out about a WA Government furniture depository where we got a load of furniture using my truck for the teachers in the new office.

When I first arrived at the school a Chemistry lab had holes in the benches including the teachers where white ants had been at work. This was dangerous. I had the lab technician spend a holiday period filling the holes with plastic wood and paint the benches.

And the really big task during my stay at Armadale was when the lower school science syllabus was changed and I had the staff edit the content of the old science books I had on floppy disk to produce text material for student use. This was a very big undertaking and as most of them had not used the old science books they did not know where to find the material so I ended up doing a large part of the work at this stage. Jim Fuller had by this time got very involved in computing and we bought a scanner to scan the pictures in the original books. During 1989 the lab technicians used a photocopier we bought to print text material for the students for each topic. We charged the students a fee for this and made the Science Department a lot of money. We sold the content to 78 other schools on floppy discs. Unfortunately all this effort was not something the Principal noticed and no mention was made of it when I left.

The school was a long way from home and I applied for a position at South Fremantle SHS which was closer.

I was not prepared to have the text material produced at the new school but before the end of 1989 I used my truck to pick up a truckload of old Chemistry textbooks and student workbooks that the Education Department was going to destroy so I could use at South Fremantle SHS. A house near the swimming pool was used to store them.

The following writing fits in at this point in the tale.

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Milkround

I bought the milkround in 1986 thinking that the family that works together stays together. Unfortunately that did not take my wife into account.

The chap I bought it from did the deliveries and his wife did the paperwork, or computer work as it was. My wife did not. She banked the money.

Until 1988 I only delivered in the evenings, 4 or 5 of them a week. At the end of 1988 I bought another round to get some shops. These needed deliveries in the morning. For 6 mornings a week. Consequently I would wake up at 5.30, do the morning deliveries, and then go to school. On 4 afternoons a week I would do household deliveries after school.

In 1989 I was doing all this on my own and my working week was 84 hours. This meant I needed help if I was to have any social life. My wife on 2 occasions during the year asked some friends around for a drink after I insisted she be of some help. The third time I asked she refused to help.

Unfortunately this corresponded with the students having finished their Leaving exams and one of them frequently coming back to school. She had been my most conscientious Physics student. I asked her to go to the Art Gallery with me on a Saturday. I knew she liked art. Saturdays I only had the morning delivery to the shops and no school.

We were driving up Roe Street in Perth, Western Australia, where I was an overworked teacher and milkman. I had been her teacher but not for a couple of months as she had done her final exams for University. She kept coming back to school to see me. I liked that. I liked her. She was my most interested Physics student. I was working eighty four hours a week that year. People who tell you they work more I wouldn’t believe. I was stuffed. Zombie material. When you get up at five thirty every morning except Sunday and work each evening except Saturday plus work the standard five day week, except it’s a bit shorter for teachers, to total up that many hours you miss out on something. I hadn’t any social life. I had asked my wife to do something about it a month before for the third time in the year. This time she had said no way. She was happy. She was busy with the three kids. She didn’t see any reason for doing anything about my social life. Not that she had done much the previous times. Got on the phone. Rung a couple of friends to come and have a cup of coffee and talk to me. Big effort.

Anyway, what did Heather say to her recent Physics teacher. “I want you.”

With those words the stage was set for sex. But not right now. The plan had been to visit the Art Gallery and that is what followed the invitation in the car. The visit to the Art Gallery was to be followed by lunch overlooking the ocean which I tried to do but she said she was not hungry. The point of the excursion was lost. So no nice meal. A pie at a small place for me. Nothing for her.

To convince her I was not queer I drove south to where her family had a house by the sea. Someone was working on the roof so I took her home, or to wherever she left me to go home.

Two weeks later we actually had sex. The intervening weekend she was too tense for me to get into her so we talked for six hours. That was very nice. But she wanted to be fucked so we did when we could eventually get it in.

I had checked with the Education Department Legal section that it was legal to do so.

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1990

The Principal was Bob Cross. He was a Housemaster at Craig House in Bunbury when I was a student there in Year 11 and 12 so I knew him. His staff was wary of him. When he organised a visit to the construction of the replica Captain Cook ship the take up rate from the staff was surprisingly low.

SFSHS Principal Bob Cross persecuted me.

He had a Gifted and Talented class which I taught. Unfortunately the students could enter the class if they thought they were gifted.

Some were not.

One of these evidently asked me after a test to not read out her results. Her previous results had indicated she should not have been in the class.

After I read out all the results including hers as was the usual procedure six or seven students wrote complaints to the Principal. The Education Department had altered the rules so teachers had to respond to student complaints.

The result was a time wasting exercise designed to annoy the teacher.

I refused to respond to the complaints.

Another report I wrote at some time in the past about SFSHS gifted students is as follows.

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Work Stress

It was a secondary school with students from Year 8 to Year 12, i.e. from about 13 years old to 17 years old. It was in the city in an older area with a high proportion of immigrants. Economically the area was towards the poorer end of the scale of wealth. The total school student population was about 1,000. The city was a port and the school promoted itself as a specialist in marine studies, but not very effectively as the coordination necessary to do it successfully depended on a total team effort from the staff, and the School Principal was not a team player, preferring an autocratic role. There was conflict between the staff and the Principal. This arose from a change in how schools in the State were administered. Consultation by the Principal with the staff was required so that everyone working in the school had a say in its running. This had become necessary as school student populations had decreased and teachers were not being promoted out of the classroom, so that in schools there were a lot of very experienced teachers who knew how a school should be run and wanted an input in the running of their school.

The school offered a special course for more able students. In other schools this type of course was populated by very bright gifted students who could grasp concepts very quickly. I had taught such a class a few years before in another school and been impressed by the ability of the students. Consequently I had expectations of the ease with which the students could learn.

From the outset the students in these classes of allegedly gifted students did not impress me with their mental agility. Whereas my previous experience had been to find that by the time I had completed my teaching component of a lesson and was ready to have the students do some problems, they would have already done them as I talked and demonstrated, in this school they were slow at even grasping the concepts. Something was wrong.

Fortunately I was not alone in being new to the school and teaching these "gifted" classes. A woman whose husband I had taught with previously in the school with the real gifted students had started at the school at the same time.

Most of the students were hard working and capable, if not gifted, but some were not even capable of understanding the work with the normal amount of explanation and demonstration. In particular one girl had great difficulty. Her parents were very ambitious for her and regarded any difficulties the student had as an indication of lack of teaching ability, rather than lack of learning ability.

While the woman had not been teaching very long, I had been teaching for over twenty years and was in the school as the Head of Department for my subject area. Unfortunately this did not deter the Principal from assuming that the parents were right and the problem was with his staff, rather than the student, or as it turned out, the school's method of selecting "gifted" students.

Conflict followed, because apart from insisting on a team approach in school administration, the State Education Department insisted on all student complaints being responded to in writing by the teacher being complained about. Therefore, when half a dozen students wrote scathing comments about my teaching I was meant to respond. The cause of the complaints was my telling the class the scores of everyone in a test. This included the girl who should not have been in the class. When she became distraught at her poor score, they complained to the Principal who had them write out their complaints. I ignored the letters. I regarded the answering of them as a waste of my time.

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Science Superintendent inspection

Eventually the Principal got the Science Superintendent to visit my class. His report was filled with falsehoods to which I have my response on my computer. When I found this response last year while looking for some other files I was so upset by reading it that my blood pressure was 196 when I went to the hospital to find what was wrong with me. My blood pressure is normally around 130.

My position in the school was Head of Physical Science.

The class also complained about a first year out teacher who got the same treatment as me.

The superintendent supported the Principal and assisted him to waste my time and humiliate me. Their conduct was completely inappropriate for an experienced teacher who was the Head of Science.

The following is my response to the report by Malcolm Crosbie. Just repeating that I found this file on my computer earlier this year while looking for files relating to my history as I was thinking of writing a book for my children. After reading this I had to go to hospital as my blood pressure which is normally around 130/140 was measured by the doctor there as 196. He gave me half a tablet for blood pressure which reduced it to normal quickly. I do not take anything for blood pressure. However because my history with the Education Department causes me so much stress I have given up the idea of writing a history.

Having an employer that believes lying students and Superintendents so that you end up jobless and subsequently homeless is not something to look back on without stress.

It would be helpful to know whether Bob Cross showed his abnormal behaviour in his next school and the response he then had. The teachers at SFSHS were all too scared of him as I tried to get other Heads of Department to help me.

You no doubt have his report in my file.

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RESPONSE TO REPORT OF HIS VISIT BY MAL CROSBIE.

BY MAX PARTINGTON.

Comments refer to report as numbered:

1. Mr Crosbie could have also looked at the units currently being taught in lower school, 8321 and 8364, and my year 11 physics files, which are the most complete.

2. The lesson observed was of this type. It was the end of term, the whole exercise offended me, I was suffering from 4 months of harrassment.

The class of year 8 students was of low ability and had been given a large number of completion type worksheets I had produced using the science text material on disk which I had organized the production of and sale to other schools while at Armadale SHS. Mr Crosbie would have seen an unusually large number of worksheets because it was possible to produce a large number using the computer based materials at hand. The aim of the exercise worksheets is to provide a large amount of revision material for a weak class.

The students also participate in experimental work, which would have been easily ascertained by Mr Crosbie if he had asked me, or asked the laboratory assistant, or asked other teachers, or looked in the filing cabinet where I also keep teaching materials.

The students also see teacher demonstrations, take notes and do questions, and answer teacher directed questions. I cannot understand how assertions to the contrary can have been regarded as a credible possibility by Mr Crosbie.

3. I pointed out to Mr Crosbie that I had tried using detailed lesson plans while teaching only physics at a previous school and while it reduced preparation, it also resulted in absolute boredom, with the lessons being the same in the third year as they were in the first. Subsequently I dispensed with the idea and preferred to maintain copious amounts of resource materials which I can use to produce lessons. I think that a large factor in teacher "burn out" is boredom with the job, and I think that promoting detailed lesson plans for experienced teachers is promoting boredom, and hence teacher "burn out". I am not interested in promotion past senior teacher, and as I will be in the classroom for another 18 years, I am concerned with not being bored. I have been in the classroom for 25 years and have avoided boredom, so I think my thoughts should be treated as those of a concerned professional, rather than being tossed aside and my methods related to a first year out teacher, which is the level Mr Crosbies comments relate to, rather than someone who has taught 25 years.

Mr Crosbies comments give no credit for having been in the classroom for 25 years.

4. This is completely false, as I have hundreds available on disk for any teacher who feels they need them. They are for a number of the lower school units as well as year 11 physics. I had offered these to the first year out teacher who shares my office prior to receiving a copy of Mr Crosbies letter.

5. At Armadale SHS I only had double periods.

6. This is false.

7. I was in bad shape after 4 months of harrassment and should have been on sick leave.

8. My children have pages in their books showing spelling mistakes that have been ticked by the teacher. I think more poorly of that teacher than if the page was blank.

9. This class contains the better students.

10. There is always discussion of the material.

The students text is basically a set of notes as these texts were written for the courses. There are chapter summaries as well. In chemistry the students have to do chapter summaries in my class as part of the required work. In physics the problems book has sections before each set of problems which the students are asked to copy.

Copying such notes can be done in their own time so that class time can be better spent on the students doing problems, questions, or having the material explained.

11. Completely unwarranted comment.

MAXWELL PARTINGTON,

SENIOR TEACHER(SCIENCE),

SOUTH FREMANTLE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL.

5/9/1990.

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The stress I suffered at SFSHS resulted in me writing the following note.

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Stress

After continued persecution from the Principal I went to see the school nurse. I was grey. I was short tempered. I shook. I had all the symptoms of extreme stress. All the result of my treatment by the school Principal.

I assume the school nurse brought the matter to the attention of someone else because she disappeared and a friend of mine took her place. I had known Betty Miller and her husband Jim since 1965 but when she appeared at the school she did not make her presence known to me and all the time was distant.

I assume the one I saw had been made to disappear by the Principal. I also assume there are documents still in existence from her indicating my condition resulting from my treatment by the Principal.

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This gets the story to the end of 1990.

1991 was better at the school with the new Principal.

My family situation was not good as my girlfriend had insisted on getting pregnant in November the previous year and I was not servicing my wife. The last time I had tried to before my relationship with my girlfriend started I was worried about rolling off her because she had fattened up to resemble a barrel.

In April my wife left. The two younger children left the next day. I was not in a good way.

My girlfriend had our baby boy on August 24^th.

A month later I collected the two of them and we spent time in the apartment.

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Situation 1991

I had bought the apartment in 1990 to be used by me and my girlfriend during that year.

She had been there about a month after our son Simon was born on August 24^th,1991.

When my baby son was there I had blown on his belly. I was over the moon to be there with him.

My wife had left our home in Bateman in April, taking our 2 younger children. The older boy/man had stayed but had little to do with me. We worked the milkround together. I was still teaching.

I was renovating the apartment by removing the wallpaper prior to painting the walls.

I had suggested to the Chemistry class as a whole that they could visit the apartment to help me with the work.

I had taken the class to UWA for an event at night being held there. Natalie Taylor was one of the attendees.

I had taken the class to an event at night at Murdoch Uni which Natalie Taylor was not going to attend. Her mother dropped her and her sister off before it started and asked me to run them home. I had to do so in the milk truck as my son was using the car that night.

Natalie Taylor had told me she wanted me as her Chemistry teacher in 1992. I unfortunately assumed it was because I was so good.

She obviously got upset when I decided to take Long service leave. This may have been related to her father not living with the family.

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Questions that you should ask Natalie Taylor.

Do you acknowledge that you deliberately caused my dismissal as a teacher by your actions involving a visit to an apartment I owned in Palmyra.

You arrived alone despite my having told you in class at school when you said you would be going to the apartment to help me to ensure that you brought your sister.

You lied to me to get into the apartment. You cried and said something about your grandmother not having spoken to you just prior to arriving at the apartment.

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Two years of hell

1990 was hell because of the actions of Bob Cross, the Principal of South Fremantle Senior High School.

The Science Superintendent Malcolm Crosbie supported Bob Cross in his persecution of me by inspecting my classroom teaching and writing a false report.

My girlfriend who had deliberately got pregnant the previous November only saw me on a few occasions before she had our baby boy on August 24^th.

When I went to the Education Department after my dismissal I was told I would be given $250,000. Consequently I definitely wanted to stay sacked. I worked hard in my position as Head of Physical Science and did a better job than many contemporaries but it was not appreciated by my employer or his representatives, the principals. Max McDonald at Armadale SHS in his departing comments did not refer to me having text material produced for the lower school science students which had been necessitated by the change in the curriculum.

I would like the money I was told I was due updated to current value because the actions of the Education Department employees in believing a lying student meant I have not had a job in Australia for over twenty years despite hundreds of applications, and because it meant losing my house in Bateman which was on an 1120 m² block where I was going to build a second home.

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The Lawyer

The lawyer I employed when I was dismissed was asked to visit the school to interview members of the class to verify that the statements by the girl to the superintendent were false. He said he would and that he had.

Unfortunately his later behaviour indicated that he did not do this.

The barrister was told not say part of his statement to the tribunal because it was contrary to what I thought. However he did which in effect admitted that I had done the wrong thing. I had not.

The girl’s statements were lies.

The Western Australian lawyer had not done his job which was to defend me. He had done the opposite and ensured that I was not cleared of the case against me. If he had done as I asked and sought statements from other students in the class showing her statements to be false and then used them to show I should have my job back I would have been re-employed.

The other error was in not calling the girl to repeat to the tribunal what she had said to the superintendent. In a court it would be perjury when she told her lies.

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