A York school which had its entire board of governors walk out has still not replaced them.
On 13 September, South Bank Multi Academy Trust (MAT) released a statement that Scarcroft Primary School that an unnamed governor had “breached the code of conduct.”
That governor, Cllr Jonny Crawshaw, resigned. This led to the rest of the school’s governors resigning in protest.
They wrote letters protesting to the trust to objecting to “the appalling treatment by the MAT of a fellow governor”.
A new statement from the MAT confirms it is yet to replace the disgruntled governors.
A spokesperson said: “We are in the process of determining the governance arrangements for Scarcroft Primary School.
“We will ensure that parents at the school are communicated with as soon any decision regarding the governing body is ratified by the trustees.”
Grave concern
Meanwhile a teaching union has said it is “deeply concerned by this turn of events”
The York branch of the National Education Union said in a statement: “The governors of Scarcroft brought a wealth and depth of experience in the oversight of a school where they have helped to continue high-standards and positive results for students and staff.
“Academy chains should welcome a variety of opinions from governing bodies, the local community and staff, but unfortunately, this is often not the case.
“The governors of Scarcroft School did just this; they provided the academy with honest opinions built from direct experience of being embedded within the school and the community.
“For the academy to seek to suppress these fundamental voices is of grave concern and will do nothing to promote trust or positive outcomes for students or staff.”
The union added that academy chains “are essentially private businesses who have no local or community accountability.
“There are now eight different employers of schools in York where there used to be one – the local authority.
“Every one of these academy chains now has a CEO, a CFO and a myriad of other roles that never existed before – many of these people on six-figure salaries.
“The duplication of roles just within York means there are millions of pounds taken directly from students and school staff to pay for central services with no material impact upon the children.
“In fact, the most recent research shows that Local Authority schools outperform academy schools. The support staff in South Bank – the lowest paid workers – are the ones who had to suffer to allow the gravy train of academy bureaucracy to continue.
“We urge the council to end the privatisation of our schools in York, for the academy to fundamentally rethink their attitude towards school governors, for school teaching assistants to be paid a decent wage and for the community to rally behind these incredible governors and school staff, for if they cannot speak truth to power then who can?”