Schools urged to fight back against online harassment

“What we find is that they descend downhill very quickly, and there are false allegations made, there are defamatory comments, and people think that they can get away with it.”

“If there is a group of parents that are unhappy … two becomes four, becomes eight, becomes 16 very quickly,” she said.

McLean said teachers and principals should be more prepared to defend their reputations against their online detractors, in the courts if necessary.

“The problem is they have got away with it because schools are loath to act,” she said.

“Teachers are loath to take legal action, but my advice is when it … becomes threatening, and it’s clearly defamatory, then teachers should be exploring all legal options.

“If these adults do not see a consequence for their actions, they’re going to keep doing it.”

Berwick Lodge Primary School principal Henry Grossek, who retires this week after 55 years in education and 35 as principal at Berwick, said parents joined WhatsApp groups with good intentions.

“In fairness to parents, they get on these chatlines and aren’t aware of the dangers of using it as gossiping or carping sessions,” Grossek said.

“Once you put it out there and someone repeats it, it can be distorted and become very harmful and destructive.”

A teacher at a government school in Melbourne’s south-east, who also asked to remain anonymous, recounted families exploding in fury on their WhatsApp groups over a bring-your-own-device-to-school policy.

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Parents felt bullied by the chat group into buying or not buying a device, and the teacher overheard one parent say to another at a mums’ brunch, “Why did you buy one? We weren’t buying them, remember?”

Another parent, who had English as a second language, went to the office to demand her money back because chatter on WhatsApp led her to believe the policy had changed.

“We had to go into mega-crisis mode to try to calm families down,” the teacher said.

“It was very toxic. It can definitely become a breeding ground of misinformation.”

The Australia Catholic University’s latest study of workplace safety for principals showed parents and caregivers were the alleged culprits in 87 per cent of complaints from school leaders about cyberbullying.

The university’s investigator and former school leader Paul Kidson was himself the victim of a vitriolic social media campaign when he was a school principal.

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“They’re all consistently the same structure. It is: ‘I’m unhappy with the school. I’m going to say what I like with impunity’,” Kidson said.

“That’s why some principals just say, ‘I love my job, but if this is the way this community is going to respond, I don’t need this’.”

The academic said aggressive parents slandered or cyberbullied principals “with impunity” on social media, and that he knew of one case in which a cease-and-desist letter was sent to a family over their online behaviour.

The aggression is not confined to parent-on-teacher confrontations, and Australian Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg said spats between parents often broke out on WhatsApp chat groups.

“Someone will make a comment saying, ‘that’s hurtful, that’s a bit mean’, then it’s, ‘who are you calling mean?’,” she said.

Falkenberg said principals were having to spend time soothing the hurt feelings of parents after WhatsApp chat group pile-ons.

“We are dealing with people’s children, it doesn’t take much for people to get stressed very quickly,” she said.

Another principal at a private school in inner south-east Melbourne, who asked to remain anonymous, said he’d heard secondhand a certain year level had been sounding off on a WhatsApp group about a gripe.

“But of course nobody contacts me directly to express a concern or ask a question on the matter at hand,” he said.

“We do get the occasional issue with aggressive parents on WhatsApp, but pretty isolated examples.”

Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Justin Mullaly also called for official intervention.

“The minister for education needs to reset system-wide expectations for respectful and appropriate conduct for all stakeholders in Victoria’s public schools,” he said.

Australian Principals Federation president Tina King said parents had a right to advocate for their children, but should do so respectfully. King said that as a last resort, Victorian schools could enact school community safety orders – banning parents from a school – for threatening or defamatory statements.

An Education Department spokesperson said parents should raise issues with schools directly and that the Independent Office for School Dispute Resolution could help families and schools resolve their differences.

If unsatisfied, parents could then take their complaint to the Victorian ombudsman.

“Any harassment of staff by parents is completely unacceptable,” they said.

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