Summarised by Centrist
Glenn Marshall, a survivor of historic sexual abuse at Tauranga Boys’ College, is calling on Education Minister Erica Stanford to introduce an independent complaints process for schools, arguing that school boards currently operate with “virtually no” oversight or accountability.
“At present, school boards largely operate as judge, jury, and executioner – without adequate checks and balances,” Marshall writes.
He argues that once a board makes a decision, even a flawed or harmful one, parents have no accessible way to challenge it.
Marshall recounts his own experience seeking justice. He says Tauranga Boys’ College allowed teacher Pinky Green to resign under the guise of “ill health” in 1988 after multiple sexual assaults, including against Marshall.
In 2021, he filed a formal complaint, which eventually led to a damning Ombudsman report three years later.
“Even more alarming,” he writes, “schools are increasingly ignoring adverse Ombudsman findings without consequence,” he said.
“The Ombudsman can only issue an opinion and recommendations – not binding decisions,” Marshall notes, calling into question the real-world power of New Zealand’s primary education watchdog.
Judicial review remains the only alternative route, but Marshall describes it as expensive and out of reach for most families. By contrast, sectors like insurance and accounting already operate under binding external dispute resolution schemes.
He is now pressing the Minister for action: “An enhanced complaints process for serious complaints must also include an accessible, timely, binding, independent dispute resolution pathway.”
