cstegerlewis wrote:Excellent response!
Firtsly 'Judgement' as in opinion on the appropriateness, not on your person (ie remember not to personalise insults) - If I were trying to do what you are doing, with a few more years experience than I had as a recent Old Blue, I would be going straight to the SMT with it - public petitioning can be akin to lobbying, or even more extreme forms of behaviour - sometimes it is innappropriate for an 'authority' to be seen to bow to any sort of pressure, even though you may well have got changed through private discussion.
Secondly, closing down a website which was possibly/probably held or edited on CH assets is clearly within the rights (human rights) of an entity - if you provide an fund an asset you have some recourse to edit/control what it is used for. If it was managed independently by an external body or agency, then that would be for the courts to decide if it were free speech, or in breach of any law of libel/slander etc. Closing down a website and seeking some 'punishment' against the authors is hardly fascism, it is just enforcing the discipline of rules that probably the parents/guardians of the indivuals had signed up to (and the individuals were probably minors when it happened).
You use the word 'regime' in a perjorative sense as though it is necessarily bad - however it is just a set of rules that have been set and agreed to by the SMT, and should have the full endorsement of the governing body - if not supported by them, as the employer they may well direct the SMT otherwise or remove them. Therefore the target of your ire should perhaps be aimed higher?
However the simple fact remains that the SMT have been appointed, with the governing body well aware of Mr. Franklin's style and manner, which is where this fundamentally comes from. AFAIK they still support and endorse him, and if the parents do so as well it will continue. However it is a (mostly) free country, with freedom of expression and will, and if the consumers of the service do not like it (ie the parents, and to some extent the staff) they will have the freedom to object or remove themselves.
Where we all fundamentally agree is this removal should not be due to hastily, ill concieved plans to increase the parental contribution, to the detriment of the fundamental ethos of the school. I repeat my previous assertion that if you limited the petition to that singularly huge issue you would have my support.
Why should the staff remove themselves? There are a few who have left the school already and I think it an atrocity. Even Mrs Ireland, who wasn't their for MASSES of time but was around for a few years was phenomenal. Not to mention The revd Mitra and Revd Mitra and Mr Avenell. All absolute assetts to the school. And I can think of a few others who might leave who are just as important.
And why should parents remove their children? CH was a school like no other. It sounds cliche but there was a sense of community always, and even now, people who I didn't speak to at school speak to me and vice versa. We might not have realised it in our youth, but some bonds were built without us knowing, and definately a sense of unity. When I talk to others about their school experiences it was nothing the same. Franklin is technically making it into any other boarding school, as Hugh Overend once said to me. CH was never any old boarding school. and Nor should it be. So if the parents sent their children to CH it was to have an experience unlike the others.
Regime- it is a regime. There were always rules. I was punished several times, as were my friends, some friends were removed from the school permanently. There was always discipline. This is regimental, because it is EXTREME. Unnecessary. Pointless.
And it annoys me when people use the argument that people never adapt to change. If change is necessary it's fine. If it's done for the hell of it and just to make a controversial impact so people think you are truly turning things around and "wow look how Franklin came in and completely changed things," I think it's rubbish. It's like he has some kind of complex which means he has to do drastic things so he's remembered or respected or something. And when people say everyone will adapt to his ways and it takes some time, I think, he's been here nearly three years. Isn't that time enough?
I have friends at Ardingly, he did the same thing there. And his team came with him to CH.
I figured if the country wouldn't supply me with work etc, I would go elsewhere!!
