Tamborine Mountain State High principal Tracey Brose on leave amid speculation about future

There is speculation over the future of a Gold Coast principal who successfully sued parents for defamation after she made a surprise move.

Tamborine Mountain High School principal Tracey Brose has taken leave.

A Gold Coast high school principal who successfully sued parents for defamation after they defamed her by calling her an “evil, nasty, horrible woman” in social media posts has taken leave amid speculation about her future.

Long-serving Tamborine Mountain State High principal Tracey Brose quietly left work two weeks before the end of Term 1 and has been temporarily replaced by Park Ridge State High executive principal Sharon Amos.

It follows friction with sections of the school community which led to her being offered a transfer to another school last year, sources said.

But Ms Brose told The Courier-Mail she isn’t going anywhere and has been dealing with a family illness but plans to return to the school in the near future.

Ms Brose, who has been principal at the school since 2001, made national headlines when she became embroiled in a bitter legal fight with parents in a landmark social media defamation case.

Tamborine Mountain State High principal Tracey Brose leaves Southport Court during her defamation case. Picture: Adam Head

She was eventually awarded $6000 in compensation in 2020 after a District Court judge found she had been defamed by two parents in savage online attacks.

It was a bittersweet victory for Mrs Brose, with the judge criticising her credibility as a witness and awarding her a fraction of the $1.5 million-plus in damages she had sought from the eight parents she originally sued in a bitter 3½-year legal battle.

The explosive case came after Ms Brose was suspended in 2016 for reasons which have never been made public, despite parents’ attempts to expose them during a two-week trial in Southport District Court.

Judge Catherine Muir found that the veteran educator had been defamed in scathing comments on an online petition calling for her reinstatement.

The court heard the Ms Brose had been called an “evil, nasty, horrible woman”, a “bad principal” and a “lying, manipulative bully” in comments on the change.org petition and Facebook.

Ms Brose reached out of court settlements with some parents but ultimately ended up taking four to court. Two of them, Donna and Miguel Baluskas, were found to have defamed Ms Brose.

The Baluskases, who were bankrupted and lost their home during the legal battle, were each ordered to pay the principal $3000 in damages for Ms Brose’s “hurt and distress”.

The court heard Ms Brose had spent more than $600,000 on the defamation case but Judge Muir said the damages she awarded were “modest and well below what the plaintiff was seeking … but I consider them sufficient to vindicate (Ms Brose).”

Speaking after the ruling, the emotional couple said Ms Brose could “stick her bill up her arse”.

Ms Brose maintained the case was never about the money but about restoring her reputation and protecting her family after Mr Baluskas was convicted over a violent incident at her home.

Mr Baluskas was handed a suspended jail sentence in November 2019 after pleading guilty to criminal charges stemming from an incident where he stormed Ms Brose’s Tamborine Mountain home in his pyjamas and kicked in her door in a fit of rage as he tried to confront her over the defamation case.

Contacted by The Courier-Mail, Ms Brose confirmed she was on leave over a family illness and would return to the school but declined to comment further.

An Education Queensland spokesman said the department was “unable to comment on individual arrangements regarding the employment of its employees for privacy reasons”.

Tamborine Mountain State High has consistently been one of Queensland’s top-performing state schools, often punching above its weight in academic results and satisfaction surveys.

It was the Gold Coast’s top non-private school last year when it came to Year 9 Naplan results and achieved a 96.9 per cent approval rating by parents, students and teachers in a survey of Queensland’s best and worst schools by The Courier-Mail in 2022.

Originally published as Tamborine Mountain State High principal Tracey Brose on leave amid speculation about future