Castle Hill High asbestos scandal: principal banned from being employed while deputy demoted

Teachers at a Sydney school which had asbestos in the ceiling claim nothing was done about it because of fears the scandal might damage HSC results, parliament has heard.

Classroom teachers at Castle Hill High school have sensationally accused a former principal of turning a blind eye to asbestos because she worried any health scare could jeopardise the school’s HSC results.

Castle Hill High teacher John Connell told the NSW Parliamentary Committee on Monday morning that there were scores of complaints from teachers about material falling from the ceiling in the English and history staffroom that had been ignored by former principal Vicky Brewer.

She retired in 2021 and a Professional and Ethical Standards unit conducted an investigation which found she had since been placed on the Not to Be Employed List.

Mr Connell told the committee that deputy Andrew Mitchell has since been demoted.

The committee heard a sample was sent off in 2016 to a lab in Wollongong which came back positive to the Deputy Principal’s general assistant but no action was ever taken and staff were told it was negative.

Asbestos was found at Castle Hill High School. Picture: Damian Shaw

Mr Connell said the administrative assistant should never have been charged with the responsibility of receiving the positive test results and said it was difficult to believe former principal Ms Brewer never had the results.

“She was incredibly driven for the school to be a high achieving,” he told the committee.

“I believe it was intentional and I believe it was driven by a desire for the HSC results to just keep getting better and better.”

“I find it implausible that information wasn’t passed back. I have seen the report, this is positive and I cannot for a second understand how it was never acted upon by the principal or by Andrew Mitchell.”

“Not only don’t believe that she didn’t know. I think that the reason why she used (the general assistant) is so that if it was positive, it could be covered up.

“Now, I’ll never be able to prove that, but I can’t see why else she wouldn’t go through the correct procedure, which is to contact the Asset Management Unit.”

Castle Hill MP Ray Williams blew the whistle about how asbestos has been found at Castle Hill High School. Picture: Damian Shaw

In 2020, it came to light among staff that the positive test was positive.

The school opted to remediate rather than remove the asbestos in 2020 but that was well after alterations were made to the ceiling in 2018 with no notification there was asbestos to the tradies who removed it.

“I want you to consider how you’d feel if your son or daughter was one of the tradespeople who had been tasked with ripping down the old HSIE or English stuff from ceilings and replacing them in 2018,” current teacher Shane Stubbs told the committee.

Department of Education executive director Daryl Currie told the hearing there was no evidence that principal had deliberately covered up the asbestos but said the disciplinary action was taken because the task of dealing with the asbestos test results were delegated to a junior employee.

“I think what is really important within the PEZ investigation … that was in the inbox of a junior employee, there was no evidence it was cited by anybody else,” he said.