Donvale Christian College teacher Margaret Sheldon loses unfair dismissal claim

A teacher who raised concerns about the allocation of funding to Donvale Christian College has learnt the outcome of her unfair dismissal claim.

A Donvale Christian College teacher who accused the school of mismanaging federal disability funds has lost her claim for unfair dismissal.

A Donvale Christian College teacher who accused the school of mismanaging federal disability funds has lost her claim for unfair dismissal.

The Federal Circuit Court ruled that the woman, Margaret Sheldon, was fired over performance issues, and not because she raised concerns over the school’s management of $2.5 million in annual disability support payments.

Ms Sheldon worked at the Donvale school from January to June 2020 as a student support officer co-ordinating assistance for children with disabilities.

She was dismissed on June 16 after repeated performance issues including a failure to reply to emails, failing to foster relationships with key staff and students and delays in preparing individual learning plans for students with disabilities.

However, Ms Sheldon said that in mid 2020 she raised concerns about the allocation of funding to the school through the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on students with a disability program.

The program, which began in 2019, gives schools $5000 per student and requires a range of records to be kept.

Leaders at the school, including executive principal Tim Argall and assistant principal Steve Venour, said they took the issues seriously and were looking into Ms Sheldon’s claims, but did not see her as a whistle blower.

Ms Sheldon also claimed her termination was prohibited because she had a locked-up jaw disability sustained while she was on a Microsoft Teams meeting.

However, Judge Heather Riley ruled the school did not take adverse action in sacking Ms Sheldon.

“It seems to me that Ms Sheldon’s underperformance gave Donvale, Mr Argall and Mr Venour ample reason to decide to dismiss her,” she said.

“I consider that Ms Sheldon’s disclosures or complaints about Donvale’s NCCD funding did not play a part in the decision,” she ruled.

Despite this, Judge Riley said there was a “proper foundation” for Ms Sheldon’s claims in relation to the accounting of disability funding at the school and that federal documents showed some missing information for half of the students.

Subsequent documents showed the school had overstated its disabled student numbers by five out of 1556 students – around 0.33 per cent.

A spokesman for Donvale Christian College said the onus of proof was on the school and the matter was dismissed.