Rabbi Pinchas Ash loses fight to keep Yeshiva College teaching job

A popular Yeshivah College Rabbi sacked over a string of child safety incidents at the St Kilda East school has had one last attempt at winning back his $90,000 a year job.

Rabbi Pinchas Ash has lost his appeal to get his job at Yeshiva College back.

A popular Yeshiva College Rabbi sacked after he failed to supervise his class leaving students

to get injured in a schoolyard brawl has lost his appeal to win back his $90,000 a year job.

Rabbi Pinchas Ash was fired from the Orthodox Jewish school in April last following several incidents, including repeatedly turning up late, missing breakfast and assembly duties and failing to supervise students on several occasions.

Rabbi Ash had been a popular teacher at the St Kilda East school for 40 years, with more than 500 parents last year signing a petition calling for him to be reinstated.

Earlier this year, Rabbi Ash took his fight against his dismissal to the Fair Work Commission, claiming an official warning would have been a more appropriate response to his “minor infractions”.

But the school board argued it should “not have to tolerate a situation where a staff member, not for the first time, was not present supervising when an incident or potential incident affecting a student’s health and safety occurs or might occur”.

The commission heard on one occasion a student had been injured and required first aid after Rabbi Ash had failed to turn up for his “rostered duty in the school cafeteria”.

Fair Work Commission deputy president Amanda Mansini criticised Rabbi Ash’s “absence of an appreciation of the gravity or insight” into his actions.

“The serious obligation of the school to protect the safety of its students and discharge its duty of care to the students are paramount to my consideration that the dismissal was not disproportionate to the conduct,” she said.

But Rabbi Ash this month fought to have the ruling overturned, arguing he had shown remorse and had sent a letter of apology to the board shortly after the incident.

However, the commission described the two-line email as “casual and insincere”.

The commission last week granted Rabbi Ash leave to appeal citing it was in the public interest as his dismissal was likely to have “significantly detrimental effects on Rabbi Ash … in respect of his standing and prestige in Chabad community”.

However, they dismissed his claim to be reinstated, saying he had not been unjustly punished.

“The fact that a student was injured underlines the importance of student supervision and the potential for legal liability to attach to the school,” the commission found.

“It does not matter that in this case the evidence did not disclose the precise nature of the injury … that the school regarded this as a serious matter at the time is demonstrated by the fact of the warning issued to Rabbi Ash by the school, which threatened termination of employment as one of the potential disciplinary responses should there be a further failure to supervise students.”

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