Bad apples: Why the SA education department investigated 95 school staff in just over a year

Drugs charges, sex harassment and racism claims are behind some of the 95 probes into school staff in the past year that could not be revealed until now. See the database.

Assaults on students, sexual harassment and fraud were among 95 claims that, in little more than a year, triggered investigations into teachers and other public education staff and were not divulged to school communities.

Grooming and sexual relationships with former students, mistreating students with disabilities, drugs charges and racist remarks to pupils are also allegations revealed in documents released under Freedom of Information laws.

Teachers and relief teachers were the subject of 49 claims between January 2020 and April this year.

One teacher was accused of “sexual harassment of female staff at a Christmas party” while two more allegedly “incited” sexual harassment.

School services officers, who provide classroom and administrative support in schools, were the next largest category of accused staff with 18 cases.

Two school services officers were investigated for fraud and one for stealing data from department servers. A groundsman was the subject of a corruption probe and a contracted bus driver allegedly injured a child on a bus.

A preschool teacher and an early childhood worker failed to submit mandatory notification reports to the Child Abuse Report Line, claims in the documents show.

Five principals and an assistant principal were put under a cloud for claims ranging from misuse of resources and closing a school “without proper authorisation” to manipulation and inappropriate conduct towards female staff.

The documents were monthly reports from the department’s investigations unit to the chief executive but they were heavily redacted, prompting the state opposition to call for greater transparency.

Names of the accused were removed, as were the names of their schools and all notes accompanying the accusations, leaving only basic titles such as “inappropriate touching”, “attempts to intimidate staff”, and arrests for “assault and resisting police”, “making unlawful threats” and “trafficable amounts of prohibited substances”.

Labor education spokesman Blair Boyer. Picture: Morgan Sette

Labor’s education spokesman Blair Boyer did not object to staff names being removed, which the department said came under an FoI Act exemption when the truth of claims of criminality or misconduct have “not been established by judicial process”.

But Mr Boyer said “reams of information about allegations of fraud, theft and assault” should not be kept hidden from the public.

The department justified other redactions as preventing both “unreasonable disclosures of personal affairs” and adverse affects on the integrity of investigations.

The documents showed most probes were completed with the target of three months, though some took considerably longer. But they did not cover investigation outcomes, which the department said were “a confidential matter between the department and the employee”.

It said of investigations launched from January 2020 to April this year, three staff “remain suspended with pay” and three more without pay.

It did not say how many others were stood down over that period or how many allegations were upheld, nor give numbers of terminated staff, if any.

Mr Boyer said: “Parents should have confidence in any investigation … involving Education Department employees in their local school. Greater transparency about those outcomes will ensure that.”

The documents did not cover the types of sexual misconduct claims that require school communities be notified under protocols resulting from the 2013 Debelle inquiry.

Over the same 16-month period to April, the department said there were 12 such claims against school staff, mostly teachers, including a rape in a family home, grooming, possession of child exploitation material and sexual assault.

In seven instances, the alleged victims were at the schools involved.

None of those 12 accused are now working in schools while police charges were laid in nine cases.

The other three remain under police investigation.