PMSA elite schools scandal takes toll on Somerville House students

STUDENTS at an elite Brisbane school are said to be devastated by recent events, with senior girls feeling it most — at a time when they least need it, writes Kylie Lang.

Somerville House is at the centre of a scandal engulfing PMSA schools. Picture: Mark Calleja/AAP

• Principal ordered off campus
• ‘Bullying and un-Christian’
• More elite school staff quit

IS IT ANY wonder Somerville House students are begging their parents to move schools?

The mood at the South Brisbane private school is said to be very grim, particularly after yesterday’s brutal frogmarching off the grounds of much-loved principal Flo Kearney.

The mother of a Year 10 girl says many parents are pulling their kids out of the school because of the ongoing scandal, first exposed by The Courier-Mail two weeks ago and which has seen the departure of several senior staff.

Naturally enough, the friends of these girls want to go as well.

“My daughter is very upset and is pushing for me to move her because she’s said a few times, I don’t want to be part of a school that treats people like this,” the mother says.

“What the PMSA is doing is not in line with the Christian values the girls are being taught, and kids see through that.

“It’s a communist way of running things — where anyone from the school has been told they can’t say anything, so it’s really hard for parents to find out what’s going on.

“What happened to the principal and to [director of communications] Sarah Dreaver is quite shocking and Machiavellian.”

Principal Flo Kearney was sensationally sacked after earlier resigning.

Former Somerville House employee Rick Hiley — who left in June after admitting to downloading files and was subsequently hired by the PMSA on a $350,000 package — was the one who did yesterday’s hatchet job on the pair.

Talk about twisting the knife.

It is understood that Mrs Kearney resigned this month because of what she believed was a lack of integrity in the PMSA, which is also embroiled in claims of misconduct and lewd behaviour on its watch.

Mrs Kearney had planned to see out the year, for the sake of her students, as any decent principal should do.

Sadly, she will not be around to share with her Year 12 cohort the valedictory dinner and other end-of-year celebrations.

She has been denied this pleasure — despite doing nothing wrong to warrant her departure.

Meanwhile, students are said to be devastated, with senior girls understandably feeling it most — at a time when they least need it.

Year 12s are two weeks away from their final ever exam block and what they need — and indeed deserve — is stability.

Schools exist to educate, but this appears to elude the PMSA which, tellingly, has not one educator on its board.

Those on the receiving end of this education are suffering.