Something that will stay with me forever is after our school changed to a parallel medium school with different cultures we had our first parent’s evening. This was held to inform all the parents by me what happened in sport like athletics netball rugby and tennis as well as education. This was done so that parent could ask questions and make suggestions for the next year, and all had a vote. During the meeting the budget for the next year had to be discussed and approved by them all.
Because of the bigger classes the meeting asked if we could hire extra teachers to make the classes smaller, they were paid from the school fees. Their work was just from 8h00 till 14h00. They did not have anything to do with any extracurricular activities, where teachers who worked for the department had to work the whole day. That meant that the half day teacher got a lower salary and therefore did not work the same hours. We could not pay them much more as we tried to get as many as possible. We received some many applications that we could really pick and choose between the best of them, most of them were mothers at home and wanted to be at home when their children got back from school. This was ideal for them. During this meeting there was a mother from another culture who had definitely had a few to drink before she came and I realised that she kept interrupting talking nonsense. Later I asked one of her friends to please take her out of the hall everybody clapped their hands when she left the hall.
I believe that a meeting should never be longer than an hour or an hour and a half if it takes longer we are just wasting each other’s time. They decided that we needed an extra secretary as well, as there was so much more work with the multitude of children. I must say she was not my choice, but because everyone had a vote I accepted it. At the first swimming gala she did all the selling of the tuckshop food and sweets and handled the money.
The next morning when I wanted to see how much money we made, it was not in our safe as it should have been. There was a school rule that all money goes into a money box and then into the safe. This is done by two people and I did not understand what was going on. She said she was sorry but she took it home, I drove her to her house to get it and then she said she was so sorry but she had spent it. I gave her half an hour to fetch her stuff at school and dismissed her immediately. I really felt so sorry for her son who was also in our school.
I drove to the police station and made a case against her they took her into custody but was released on her own recognisance. She wrote an avadavat that she would repay the money, when I retired she still owed a small amount of money but I did close the case against her. A principal must always keep his eyes on the money of the school as this is one of the most important things for you to keep yourself safe and never have to explain when the auditors came to do the books, we never had any problems and always got a wonderful report on the way the books were kept in our school.
I appointed one lady to run the money and she was excellent to the extent of driving everyone crazy. She over protected the money and the rules. I am sorry to write about the negative but the truth must not be hidden as all is not always perfect in life.
Greetings from the Wild Coast.
