Biggest scandal in your workplace (Mod Note in OP)

EmmetSpiceland · 09-10-2019 10:39am

Floppybits wrote: »

Have actually heard of this behaviour in another school in a city in the south east. The carry on is shocking.

I know of one school where the principal hired his daughter and she doesn’t do a tap and, like the above poster said, gets cover for missing large chunks of the school year.

Floppybits · 09-10-2019 10:50am

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

I know of one school where the principal hired his daughter and she doesn’t do a tap and, like the above poster said, gets cover for missing large chunks of the school year.

Seems to be the common theme in these schools, hiring friends and family and then looking to get more money through grants by offering more on learning difficulties and taking in more kids from disadvantaged communities but not actually having the trained staff to work with the kids.

Then a blind eye is turned to the school by everyone is education because they are providing an easy out for the other schools in the area that don't want to take on those kids. It's sickening what is happening in some schools.

CrankyHaus · 09-10-2019 11:39am

Floppybits wrote: »

Seems to be the common theme in these schools, hiring friends and family and then looking to get more money through grants by offering more on learning difficulties and taking in more kids from disadvantaged communities but not actually having the trained staff to work with the kids.

Then a blind eye is turned to the school by everyone is education because they are providing an easy out for the other schools in the area that don't want to take on those kids. It's sickening what is happening in some schools.

Yeah while schools are generally very well run the local control model of schools can enable rotten boroughs, particularly in some rural areas where corruption is part of the governing culture.

I know a solicitor who was listed as a teacher in her Mammy's School, doing a few hours a week while working most of her time in the law, for the purpose of obtaining a state pension. I also know a large school where a local clique had the BOM and Principal spot sewed up and crammed the place with vending machines they collected 5 figure sums from on a weekly basis.

Hotblack Desiato · 09-10-2019 11:46am

Floppybits wrote: »

Then a blind eye is turned to the school by everyone is education because they are providing an easy out for the other schools in the area that don't want to take on those kids. It's sickening what is happening in some schools.

Exactly. Everybody says stuff like "X is a good school" etc, what this means of course is that there are also bad schools all over the place and we just tolerate them. Or in effect encourage them as we don't want our kids to be mixing with the wrong sort, so the wrong sort need somewhere to go...

Airyfairy12 · 09-10-2019 6:06pm

Ive no reason to lie. Its actually shocking what is happening in some schools. This wasnt a rural school either.

Addle · 09-10-2019 6:14pm

So report it.

Airyfairy12 · 09-10-2019 6:16pm

Addle wrote: »

So report it.

Lol to who? The department do nothing, the teaching council do nothing. Theres a reason this sort of carry on continues.

tabby aspreme · 09-10-2019 6:23pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Parish priest I'll bet. You'll find the principal will be licking the PP's hole every Sunday mass

The "parent" representatives probably had their kids graduate from there sometime around 1985. They'll be holy joes too. The teacher nominees... now let me guess who they might be related to?

The parent reps, have to have children currently in the school, every parent has a vote, one male and one female parent appointed. Current board's in primary schools finish 31 Nov this year.

bear1 · 10-10-2019 10:40am

The school thing reminded me of one but I'm pretty skeptical of it's legitimacy.
School I went to had a priest for a principle. Won't say the name of the school for obvious reasons.
Anyway he was supposedly defrauding the state by declaring more teachers were working for the school and pocketing the proceeds from it.
When the school was audited the discrepancies were all too obvious and he fled the country.
I don't fully believe it as I'm not sure how he could claim salaries etc without providing real PPS numbers and bank accounts.
Or is it possible?

Hotblack Desiato · 10-10-2019 11:22am

tabby aspreme wrote: »

The parent reps, have to have children currently in the school, every parent has a vote, one male and one female parent appointed. Current board's in primary schools finish 31 Nov this year.

My mother was a parents' representative at my school in the 80s, she was the only one who still had a child at the school

Odelay · 10-10-2019 1:37pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

My mother was a parents' representative at my school in the 80s, she was the only one who still had a child at the school

It was acceptable in the 80's
It was acceptable at the time
It was acceptable in the 80's
It was acceptable at the time

realdanbreen · 11-10-2019 12:16pm

CosmicFool wrote: »

So I work for a multinational and an engineer had problems with his laptop. He left it in with the IT guys and low and behold the dirty bastard had plenty of pics of guys in the loo.
He took pictures form under and over the stalls. He was made resign and It was all Swept under the carpet as such.

Again as many posters have mentioned had phantom ****ters. One was lwft under a mat for a few days and the others were mainly in the toilet. Toilet bowl just riddles with ****e.
We always have to check the toilet roll too before tolling it out incase there is ****e on it as one lad went to take some and there was some on the roll. He came out of the toilet as if he saw a ghost. He was pretty disturbed by it.

Had a good few instances of married men and women having affairs. Couple have gotten caught either on the roof or in store rooms etc.

Raheen?

AndrewJRenko · 12-10-2019 1:55pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

My mother was a parents' representative at my school in the 80s, she was the only one who still had a child at the school

The 'only one'? There are two parent representatives on a Board of Management, one male, one female. So there was one other parent representative.
You may be mixing up community representatives, who often have previous connections with the school, possibly as past pupils or a parents of past pupils.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The "parent" representatives probably had their kids graduate from there sometime around 1985. They'll be holy joes too. The teacher nominees... now let me guess who they might be related to?

The parent nominees are reelected every four years, drawn from the parents of current children. They are elected - any parent can stand for election.

The teacher nominees are elected by teachers. Any teacher can stand for election.

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

I know of one school where the principal hired his daughter and she doesn’t do a tap and, like the above poster said, gets cover for missing large chunks of the school year.

Have you reported this fraud to the Board of Management? Or the Dept Education? Or the patron body?

CrankyHaus wrote: »

I know a solicitor who was listed as a teacher in her Mammy's School, doing a few hours a week while working most of her time in the law, for the purpose of obtaining a state pension. I also know a large school where a local clique had the BOM and Principal spot sewed up and crammed the place with vending machines they collected 5 figure sums from on a weekly basis.

Working a few hours a week would qualify for a pension of a few cents a week.

Have you reported this fraud to the Board of Management? Or the Dept Education? Or the patron body? Or the Gardai indeed?

Floppybits wrote: »

Seems to be the common theme in these schools, hiring friends and family and then looking to get more money through grants by offering more on learning difficulties and taking in more kids from disadvantaged communities but not actually having the trained staff to work with the kids.

There are no grants for taking on children with more learning difficulties. They might get some SNA hours, but the process of getting such hours is tortous. Most principles are too busy begging for hours to cover existing students to have time to think about playing the system.

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

Ive no reason to lie. Its actually shocking what is happening in some schools. This wasnt a rural school either.

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

Lol to who? The department do nothing, the teaching council do nothing. Theres a reason this sort of carry on continues.

Do the Board of Management first. If that doesn't work, to the patron body - usually the Catholic dioscise for a traditional church school. If that doesn't work, try the Minister for Education. If that doesn't work, try Joe Duffy or Prime Time or whoever.

bear1 wrote: »

The school thing reminded me of one but I'm pretty skeptical of it's legitimacy.
School I went to had a priest for a principle. Won't say the name of the school for obvious reasons.
Anyway he was supposedly defrauding the state by declaring more teachers were working for the school and pocketing the proceeds from it.
When the school was audited the discrepancies were all too obvious and he fled the country.
I don't fully believe it as I'm not sure how he could claim salaries etc without providing real PPS numbers and bank accounts.
Or is it possible?

There was one such recent case;

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/district-court/ex-principal-charged-with-overstating-pupil-numbers-1.3468282

Prime Time also reported on a principal that was exaggerating student numbers to claim funds for breakfasts that weren't being provided.

It's good to see such cases being exposed and addressed.

If all the people here act on all the evidence they have of these terrible frauds, we'll have a few more cases coming through the Courts.

RosieJoe · 12-10-2019 5:29pm

Law society numpties and their WhatsApp group. One read of this thread and they would have known it would only end in tears

ArnoldJRimmer · 12-10-2019 8:51pm

RosieJoe wrote: »

Law society numpties and their WhatsApp group. One read of this thread and they would have known it would only end in tears

I just don't get the stupidity of it all, with pwc (I think) a few years ago, there was a similar thing going on. In my day, men and women talked about the various hotties at work in the pub. Not in the crude terms like its alleged happened here, but thats beside the point, its beyond idiotic to leave such a paper trail

Hotblack Desiato · 14-10-2019 11:40am

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

The 'only one'? There are two parent representatives on a Board of Management, one male, one female. So there was one other parent representative.

There wasn't, though.

They are elected - any parent can stand for election.

LOL. Elected. Haha.

James Bond Junior · 14-10-2019 12:30pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

There wasn't, though.

LOL. Elected. Haha.

They have to be nominated and elected by parents.

Airyfairy12 · 14-10-2019 8:35pm

ArnoldJRimmer wrote: »

I just don't get the stupidity of it all, with pwc (I think) a few years ago, there was a similar thing going on. In my day, men and women talked about the various hotties at work in the pub. Not in the crude terms like its alleged happened here, but thats beside the point, its beyond idiotic to leave such a paper trail

Theres nothing wrong in talking about 'hotties', the problem is with the vulgar, creepy and down right rapey language used. That is the whole point.

ArnoldJRimmer · 14-10-2019 8:44pm

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

Theres nothing wrong in talking about 'hotties', the problem is with the vulgar, creepy and down right rapey language used. That is the whole point.

Yep, I know the language and attitude is the problem here. My point was that if you want to be creepy and disgusting, its incredibly stupid to leave a paper trail that will exist forever. I just used a more innocent example of when I was a young lad to illustrate this. That said, back then group chats did not exist and social media was in its infancy, so methods of communication have changed

AndrewJRenko · 14-10-2019 9:26pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

There wasn't, though.

LOL. Elected. Haha.

If the Board of Management wasn't constituted in line with the legal requirements, the Dept Education would certainly act. Did anyone bother educating themselves on the governance rules or escalating the matter?

byhookorbycrook · 14-10-2019 9:36pm

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

Not really a scandal but I used to work as an SNA for a short while, I worked temporarily in a school where the principal had employed his wife and a load of his other relatives and friends as teachers and sna's in the school who he gave special treatment to. This treatment included not marking them out when they missed days so they would still get paid, some missed weeks at a time, sometimes he'd get in subs but pay them from the school funds so the board of education wouldnt know the staff were missing days. Subs where brought in and not even told what classes they would be having or where they were supposed to be, they ended up being dumped in random classes with nothing prepared and then bullied by management and staff for not being prepared.. for classes they didnt know they would be teaching. All the while the kids where left with no structure or suitable classes.
He'd organise Erasmus trips away and pick himself, his wife and some of his other friends to go, these trips where in truth fully paid holidays abroad for him, his wife and friends to foreign sunny countries.
Some staff members were being bullied by the principals wife and friends he employed in the school but the principal wouldnt do anything, promoted one of them to a higher, much better paid position which wasnt needed in the school as the school was tiny, to make better paid jobs for his friends in the school he upped the number of kids taken into the school, he took a load of kids that no other school would take, kids with serious behavior issues that staff wearnt able to or trained to deal with and dumped them in the classes of the staff not in his circle.
The staff member given the higher position bullied other staff members, screamed at them and created needless extra work loads and paper work.
His wife couldnt get a permanent job anywhere else only this school, she was horrible to the kids, parents even had to come in and complain about her but nothing was done.
Whenever inspectors or parents where coming to the school notes with positive affirmations where stuck to doors and in the staff room to make it look like the school had a positive atmosphere, in reality, bullying was an everyday occurrence between staff members, staff would regularly go on sick leave because the atmosphere in the school was so unbearable. The entire school would be decorated with childrens work and staff would put up decorative notice boards to impress the inspectors. Management would walk with inspectors around the school directing them to the best classes.
It was all a big performance. Worst place ive ever worked.

It was crazy to see what goes on in schools, I actually left childcare assisting after that job.

Sorry, but I'm calling total BS on this.
If the school was "tiny" how were so many of these cronies employed?

Interviews for positions in schools are done through an interview panel, no principal could be part of that process if a relation was one of the applicants. And you can't just invent a "higher, better paid job."

School accounts must be presented to the BOM, there's no way they'd constantly be able to fund subs from school accounts,even if they wanted to.

And I can promise you that inspectors don't allow themselves to be "led by the nose"- it takes a bit more than some notice boards and affirmations to satisfy an inspector.

And are you telling me that not one single staff member or parent followed the official complaints' procedure?

byhookorbycrook · 14-10-2019 9:41pm

Floppybits wrote: »

Seems to be the common theme in these schools, hiring friends and family and then looking to get more money through grants by offering more on learning difficulties and taking in more kids from disadvantaged communities but not actually having the trained staff to work with the kids.

Then a blind eye is turned to the school by everyone is education because they are providing an easy out for the other schools in the area that don't want to take on those kids. It's sickening what is happening in some schools.

You do know how DEIS operates, I presume?Unless a school has DEIS status, they get nothing extra for children with disadvantaged backgrounds,so that's that one down in flames.

Unless you have a qualification in SEN- which you can only generally get when working IN SEN, most teachers in Irish schools have no extra training.

banie01 · 14-10-2019 9:42pm

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Sorry, but I'm calling total BS on this.
If the school was "tiny" how were so many of these cronies employed?

Interviews for positions in schools are done through an interview panel, no principal could be part of that process if a relation was one of the applicants. And you can't just invent a "higher, better paid job."

School accounts must be presented to the BOM, there's no way they'd constantly be able to fund subs from school accounts,even if they wanted to.

And I can promise you that inspectors don't allow themselves to be "led by the nose"- it takes a bit more than some notice boards and affirmations to satisfy an inspector.

And are you telling me that not one single staff member or parent followed the official complaints' procedure?

Ah c'mon now don't be ruining the story with a liberal application of cop on

CrankyHaus · 15-10-2019 9:33am

Teacher's Team Assemble!
Great to see them all out in a united front of "nothing to see here".

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Working a few hours a week would qualify for a pension of a few cents a week.

I'd have to ask the Solicitor in question for the details, she seemed secure enough in her boasting that I didn't doubt her. Perhaps her hours working at the school were falsified but I really don't know.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Have you reported this fraud to the Board of Management? Or the Dept Education? Or the patron body? Or the Gardai indeed?

Don't want to say too much and doxx myself. Suffice to say that as the subsequent Principal was the one who told me this it was clear that the proper authorities already knew ... and did nothing, In Ireland? quelle surprise!
Perhaps the subsequent Principal was lying when he told me this, but I found him credible.

KaneToad · 15-10-2019 9:39am

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

Theres nothing wrong in talking about 'hotties', the problem is with the vulgar, creepy and down right rapey language used. That is the whole point.

It appears that there was no wrong doing in this latest incident. Other than a crude name for a WhatsApp group. An overreaction, it would appear.

rgmmg · 15-10-2019 9:39am

partyguinness wrote: »

Amen to that.

...

I was more concerned that my heavily pregnant wife had no idea where I was or what I had got up and the bollocking I was going to get...:o

Gay guy was the least of my worries at that stage.

Either way you were going to get bollocked by someone. Best it was the wife

Donnielighto · 15-10-2019 9:46am

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Teacher's Team Assemble!
Great to see them all out in a united front of "nothing to see here".

I'd have to ask the Solicitor in question for the details, she seemed secure enough in her boasting that I didn't doubt her. Perhaps her hours working at the school were falsified but I really don't know.

Don't want to say too much and doxx myself. Suffice to say that as the subsequent Principal was the one who told me this it was clear that the proper authorities already knew ... and did nothing, In Ireland? quelle surprise!
Perhaps the subsequent Principal was lying when he told me this, but I found him credible.

Anonymous caller to local radio would have it looked at sharpish.

Ash.J.Williams · 15-10-2019 9:52am

piplip87 wrote: »

Girl I worked with was been plaughed on Facebook on Instagram twitter by multiple accouns, she blocked all accounts sending her **** videos. Was getting calls at night with a fella **** down the phone. Gardai where called and it was traced back to the fella she sat beside in work.

Another guy got hammered at the Christmas party. Went on a grouping, using slurs against African and gay co-workers. Didn't work out so bad for him. Was suspended with pay for 3 months while the investigation took place.

Ahhh plagued....

Portsalon · 15-10-2019 9:54am

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Working a few hours a week would qualify for a pension of a few cents a week.

It could also enable the individual concerned to accumulate Class A PRSI credits towards the State Contributory pension.

Portsalon · 15-10-2019 10:02am

Colleague in work came into tea break late and distressed after a heated phone call with a customer. Without telling anyone, one of her colleagues slipped out of the canteen went to her desk, called the customer back (anonymously as he thought, being a complete technical ignoramus and this having taken place about 20 years ago) and abused and threatened her.

She immediately traced the call and contacted both our Head Office and the gardaí. As the call had been made from the female colleague's phone, she was under suspicion briefly, until the complainant clarified that the abusive caller had been male. Didn't take long to identify the guilty party who was immediately suspended (on full pay, sadly) to universal delight, as he was widely despised. He was later 'persuaded' into taking early retirement - and, thanks be to goodness, his local Union rep. refused to intervene on his behalf. Today, he'd probably have gone on extended sick leave and received counselling.

Biggest scandal in your workplace (Mod Note in OP)

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