St Paul’s principal Paul Browning farewelled in student honour guard as Bishop agrees to meet parents

Parents angry over the sacking of St Paul’s principal Paul Browning will protest again as headmaster sent off in guard of honour.

• ‘Toxic clash’: School, church break silence
• ‘Enraged’: Inside the ‘spectacular implosion’

Fired up parents are refusing to stop fighting for the reinstatement of the now-former St Paul’s School principal Paul Browning, farewelled at an emotional end-of-term assembly at 2.30pm on Friday.

Working as a newly formed committee in support of Dr Browning, they will take their campaign to the Anglican Church headquarters at St John’s Cathedral on Monday.

The peaceful noon protest is against Bishop Jeremy Greaves, who as chair of the powerful Anglican Schools Commission, sacked Dr Browning this week after axing the entire school council last month.

Parents have accused Bishop Greaves – who will be ordained the 10th Archbishop of Brisbane in December – and the ASC of a lack of transparency around the shock dismals.

Until Friday afternoon parental requests to meet Bishop Greaves had gone unanswered but in a letter addressed to parents and the school community – emailed after 3pm when Dr Browning had left the school grounds – the Bishop said: “In coming days, I intend to meet with small groups of parents to answer their questions and hopefully give them confidence in the future of St Paul’s”.

St Paul’s students Elliot Zylstra and Georgia Petterson protest the sacking of principal Paul Browning.

“Until now I have been reluctant to break the confidence of contract negotiations and

attempted to maintain discretion for the parties concerned, that being Dr Browning and the Anglican Church. But events have moved on,” he said.

Bishop Greaves said “disagreement around policy and procedures and fundamental differences in purpose and vision for the school have been the major factors”.

“This included Dr Browning’s desire to commercialise the school’s education program Realms of Thinking. After investigating the possibility of this, it was explained to Dr Browning clearly that as a not-for-profit institution with charity status, the commercialisation of Realms of Thinking could not happen at the school.

“Not only would such an enterprise jeopardise the funding position of St Paul’s, it would most certainly put at risk the funding for 10 other Anglican schools in Southern Queensland.

“There have been reports that the reason for Dr Browning’s departure was a disagreement over the funding of compensation for sexual abuse survivors. This is not correct and needs to be clarified.

Paul Browning’s contract has not been renewed. Pic: Mark Cranitch.

“In all of our schools, the parents of students are entitled to a fee refund where a case of sexual abuse is established. Since December 2020 each school now funds 100 per cent of such refunds. It is the same for redress and compensation payments. The St Paul’s school community was informed of this arrangement three years ago.”

Parents told The Courier-Mail that Bishop Greaves’ communique still did not satisfy their demand for answers, including why news of Dr Browning’s exit was delivered by Dr Browning himself, on Wednesday at 4pm.

On Friday morning, hours before Dr Browning’s final day after 15 years as headmaster was due to finish, his official St Paul’s email account was shut down, according to sources.

Students and parents were highly emotional at Dr Browning’s final assembly for the secondary school.

Immediately after the assembly, held in the Walker Centre, junior school students walked to the centre to help form a guard of honour to farewell Dr Browning, who was flanked by his wife Rebecca and daughter Millicent.

The school welcomed parents to join the guard, which processed to the carpark and roundabout.

Before school on Friday morning protesters chanted Bring Back Brown and held up signs reading “Reverse the Decision” in reaction to the shock axing of Dr Browning over a “toxic clash” with the Anglican Church.

Simon Skidmore says the decision by the Anglican Church was “just crazy”.

St Paul’s School alumnus Simon Skidmore, said the decision to hold the protest was to show the church that the school community was united in opposing the dismissal of Dr Browning.

“It’s one thing to see parents so passionate but to see kids out here … ,” Mr Skidmore said.

“He’s a leader who has been able to get the school back on track.

“Then for the Anglican Church to come in and just destroy it without and explanation or consultation is just crazy.

“The parents didn’t know until it happened, the kids didn’t know.”

Mr Skidmore said he was considering sending his daughter to another school next year.

“We are making phone calls to other schools, not just because Dr Browning is gone, but because we have a total lack of trust in the school now,” he said.

Year 12 students Georgia Petterson and Elliot Zylstra addressed the crowd, speaking of Dr Browning’s contribution to the school.

“He’s built the name for St Paul’s nationally and internationally,” Georgia said.

“He’s a foundation on which the school is built,” Elliot said.

Kye Macdonald protests outside St Paul’s School demanding principal Dr Paul Browning be reinstated.

The sensational dismissal of Dr Browning was revealed exclusively in this newspaper on Wednesday afternoon.

It took almost a full 24 hours afterwards for Bishop Greaves to send a letter to parents about the removal.

In the letter Bishop Greaves said “essentially it was about recognition of the fact that the relationship between employer and employee had broken”.

“For some time there had been a drift in alignment between the leadership of the school and the ASC”.

Parent Cori Sandys-Brooke sent an open letter with more than 120 signatures to Bishop Greaves and the ASC on Thursday afternoon, requesting a meeting.

Cori Sandy-Brooke holding an open letter to the Anglican Schools Commission.

“We want a sit-down with Archbishop-elect Greaves to sort this out – our concerns have not been heard and we want Dr Browning reinstated,” she said.

Following the turmoil, the school’s executive director of faith and learning, Nigel Grant, called for calm, saying it was “business as usual”.

This infuriated parents further, with one saying it could only be business as usual with Dr Browning at the helm.

Mr Grant urged parents to contact the ASC for further information however several claim the ASC phone number diverted straight to message bank.

“It’s ridiculous to tell us to phone the commission when no-one is taking our calls,” another parent said.

Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie) old boys have also come out in support of St Paul’s and Dr Browning and have accused the ASC of “phenomenal overreach”.

Students protest the sacking of Dr Paul Browning.