Arethusa College under fire over teacher safety, student wellbeing

A prestigious South East Qld school is being accused of putting profits ahead of staff wellbeing and teacher safety.

Arethusa College Deception Bay campus.

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A prestigious Queensland school for disengaged children and those with special needs is being accused of putting profits and expansion ahead of education and staff wellbeing.

Former employees and parents described a culture of snitching and a feeling of being overwhelmed by growing student numbers, as well as being ignored and under-supported during their time with Arethusa College.

The Sunday Mail was shown a video of an incident at the school with a distressed student and teachers seemingly fearful of the situation.

Arethusa College executive principal Lisa Coles said the safety and wellbeing of staff was “paramount”.

The Arethusa College Deception Bay campus.

“We investigated this incident, interviewing all parties involved,” she said. “We separated the students into different parts of the school, while also providing counselling and additional support around building self-regulation skills.

“We have a security guard at every campus and multiple staff are trained in de-escalation techniques.”

Ms Coles said there had been “no repeat issues relating to the two students involved”.

The independent co-ed secondary school, which has a main campus in Deception Bay and smaller campuses across Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, is operated by registered charity Equipping for Life.

Arethusa College underwent a change in leadership, which started in 2017.

Ex-employees claimed staff were encouraged to dob in anyone who commented on the running of the college.

They also emphasised the push to “get more bums on seats”, therefore increasing income through fees and available government funding, which means there are more students per staff member.

One former support worker alleged there was a “culture of suspicion”, while another former support staffer, who is still in contact with current Arethusa employees, said they felt the college was more “about the funding” and did not value students enough.

“I didn’t get to go into classrooms much, but when I did, I was disgusted … the kids were just sitting there and chatting away,” they said.

“The kids are not getting a proper education, they are not getting the support they need.”

An ex-senior employee said the college had gone from “an education model” to “a business model”.

“The whole culture is about ‘how do we maximise government funding so we can build more infrastructure’?” they said.

The college’s finances through ACARA’s MySchool database show its gross income went from under $6.5m in 2017 to more than $23m in 2021, the most recent data available.

Its federal funding has almost quadrupled and its state funding doubled in these five years.

The college’s annual income from fees was 46 times more in 2021 than in 2017, despite the student population growing by less than four times in this period.

The college had less than 300 students in 2017 and there was one full-time equivalent teacher for every eight students. In 2020, this ratio blew out to more than 20 students for every FTE teacher. By 2022, the college had more than 1000 students, and more than 15 students per FTE teacher. The average FTE teacher-to-student ratio in Queensland secondary schools in 2022 was 12 students for every FTE teacher.

An ex-teaching staff member summarised the approach as “more students, more money, but also more problems” and said staff turnover was “horrific”.

“There were instances of new staff doing only a few days and then not coming back,” they said.

A parent who had two children at Arethusa in recent years claimed the college “offered us the world and didn’t give us a thing”.

“It was absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “They are growing the school at such a fast rate … but they didn’t have the teaching staff who would stay put long enough to teach these children.

“The trauma Arethusa has caused my youngest has made it hard to homeschool him.”

But Ms Coles said Arethusa College’s growth “is the result of skyrocketing levels of community demand for different types of schooling that are better equipped to deal with the increasingly complex needs of young people”.

“Over the past few years the college has been the target of a campaign of false, misleading and vexatious claims,” she said.

“This concerted attack on our college is deeply upsetting.”

She said Arethusa had been “misunderstood, judged, and labelled”.

“Sometimes our school won’t be the right fit for staff, students or parents. They may not agree with our education philosophy,” she said.

“Our teaching staff do not work in isolation. We employ a broad range of social workers, youth workers, psychologists, counsellors, education support workers and inclusive education staff.

“It’s misleading to simply look at student-to-teacher ratios. The student to total full-time equivalent staff ratio in our college is about 6:1, which is consistent with other independent Special Assistance Schools.”

Arethusa College has four pending applications before the government-run Non-State Schools Accreditation Board to expand their offerings.