SANS SOUCI Girls’ High School officials and the provincial Education Department had allegedly been aware of complaints about the school’s discriminatory policies, but failed to act before the matter came to a head recently.
It has also emerged that teachers have allegedly been demoted and forced to resign after raising concerns about the school’s policies to principal Charmaine Murray.
Pupils (past and present), their parents and some teachers are now calling for Murray to be dismissed and for the school to do away with its “discriminatory” code of conduct.
The girls say the code, which polices their natural hair and demerits them for speaking Xhosa, leaves them feeling humiliated.
Greshen Chetty, of Access to Justice, who represents pupils in mediation with the department and other stakeholders, said issues of discriminatory practices had been raised with the school and the department, but nothing had been done.
“When teachers themselves witness students going through these practices... and when this was presented to the principal, she would either demote them or have them removed, or they would resign,” he said.
Chetty said teachers were ostracised for raising the issue.
“A number of teachers resigned and moved to other schools. Current teachers have also expressed serious concern, but have chosen to remain anonymous because they don’t trust the school or the Education Department,” he added.
Chetty said the statements were being collected and will be sent to the department as part of the investigation.
A former teacher at the school, Paula Gerard, said her contract had not been renewed after she challenged Murray about “racist policies” and how harshly the girls were treated.
In a statement to thedepartment, Gerard said: “She (Murray) still… runs the school as if there were a sea of white girls in front of her, and has complete disregard for the predicaments that 95 percent of the learners come from.
“Murray often berates the Xhosa girls openly, by saying that it is them who are refusing to co-operate by talking Xhosa,” said Gerard, who has been teaching for 22 years.
“The girls are not allowed to show their femininity by wearing braids. We were told that this is because the girls with braids stink,” she said.
Staff have been warned that Sans Souci “is an English” school and that parents registering their daughters needed to understand this, and teachers were also made to sign a confidentiality agreement preventing them from speaking about the school, she said.
“(Murray) does not consult her SGB and openly tells the girls that there is no point in going to their parents, as their parents have no business in school as they are uneducated,” Gerard added.
The department did not respond by deadline to the allegations it had been aware of the unhappiness at Sans Souci.
At Holy Cross High School, where pupils said they had been fined R10 for speaking Xhosa, the school initially undertook to provide the Cape Times with a full statement yesterday, but it had not arrived by deadline.
Holy Cross High School pupils say if they do not pay the fine, they are sent to detention the same day.
The pupils said the fine had doubled from R5 last year.