Student ‘humiliated’ by Mount Morgan State High School teacher

A frustrated parent is demanding a teacher apologise to her teenage daughter after she was allegedly ‘humiliated’ during a class learning exercise at a Central Queensland high school. The English ‘lesson’ has since been posted online.

More than three weeks have passed since a teenage girl was allegedly “humiliated” by a teacher during a class learning exercise at Mount Morgan State High School and the student’s mother has still not received an apology.

The girl’s mother is now demanding an apology from the teacher, fearing the incident was being “swept under the rug”.

The mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, spoke to The Morning Bulletin on March 8 and said she had received a call from the principal of Mount Morgan State High School who asked her to trust that he would handle the situation appropriately.

However, she said that she understood nothing had happened to the teacher.

She said the Department of Education had informed her a child had been dealt with but that they couldn’t provide any further information due to privacy.

“The kids wouldn’t have been able to do what they did if the teacher didn’t write it,” she said.

“Where does the teacher take responsibility for what she did? She’s blaming the students.”

The mother first spoke to The Morning Bulletin on February 23 about the situation she labelled “disgusting”.

She said on February 22 she was shown screenshots that were posted online of a teacher at the school using her daughter’s break-up with her boyfriend to teach an English class.

In the screenshots the teacher can be seen writing about the break-up as a way to teach the class – we have chosen not to identify any of the student’s names written on the whiteboard.

The text written on the whiteboard read: ‘(Student’s name) was sad. Dry and puffy my face red like a tomato. “How could (boy’s name) dump me like that!” screamed (student’s name), “It’s all (student’s name) fault!”

The teacher can be seen smiling in one of the screenshots.

A mother is furious after her daughter's break-up was used as an example in a creative writing exercise in a class at Mt Morgan State High School this week.

“This is beyond a joke,” the mother said.

“She’s meant to be a teacher, someone that’s meant to protect our children, someone that we’re meant to trust to protect our children and she wrote that up on the board about my daughter.”

The mother said due to Covid-19 she had been homeschooling her children, who were enrolled at the school and due to go back, and that this incident happened “behind her daughter’s back”.

“We wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t posted online,” she said.

“My daughter has had nothing to do with her (the teacher) this year.”

She said she banned her daughter from her phone to protect her from any potential “backlash”.

“Everyone is going to know who it is,” she said.

“He was her first boyfriend and he broke up with her in front of everyone.

“It’s a very real situation and the teacher found it appropriate to write it on the whiteboard.

“She humiliated my daughter in front of everyone and it got posted online. That’s disgusting.”

It is understood the teacher was presenting a lesson on Creative Writing during a Year 8 English class on Tuesday at Mount Morgan State High School and engaged in a co-constructing activity where students put together ideas for a story that was scribed by the teacher onto the board.

During this activity, members of the class suggested character names and content that, unknown to the teacher, were allegedly similar to an incident that had occurred last year involving students from the school.

The mother believes the teacher “purposely” acted the way she did.

“Teacher’s should have more common sense if they are using actual students names,” she said.

“(Student’s name) isn’t a very common name.”

The mother said she wanted the teacher to apologise to her daughter.

“What she did was wrong,” she said.

“I want her to apologise face-to-face to my daughter and tell her why she felt the need to do what she did.”

The mother said her children would not be going back to the school.

“My daughter wants to move away, she doesn’t want to be around here anymore because people are so petty,” she said.

“This school can’t be trusted to take care of my child.”

She said she put in an application for a school in Rockhampton and was waiting to hear back from the principal about an interview.

According to Mount Morgan State High School’s annual report for 2020, only 37.5 per cent of parents believed student behaviour was being well managed at the school in 2019, down 19.6 per cent from the previous year.

The report also stated that 57.1 per cent of parents thought the school took their opinions seriously.

More than half (58.5 per cent) of the students at the school thought they could talk to their teachers about their concerns and 65.9 per cent of students believed teachers at the school treated them fairly.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said the school had reviewed the incident and applied appropriate disciplinary consequences for students.

The spokesman said no further details could be provided due to student privacy issues.

The spokesman said the department was not aware of any other recent complaints relating to any teachers at Mount Morgan State High School regarding their conduct against students.