Leis shafted by KLAN

Coleen Leis has been the latest victim of the Carenne Special School KLAN, following a finding by EPAC that she engaged in misconduct. As a result of the finding, Mrs Leis has been forcibly transferred to Denison College - Kelso High Campus.

The investigation, carried out by Malcolm Barnett was initiated after a complaint by Angie Cranston, an aide at the school known for her constant bullying and the making of complaints to serve her own interest.

In Term 3, Cranston made a complaint to Barnett who was relieving as manager of EPAC's serious misconduct team alleging that Leis had leaked information about the school, was incompetent, had bullied her and was abusive towards her and other staff. Cranston's complaint came after an incident where Leis observed Cranston dragging a student by his hair along a corridor.

Leis intervened and took the student to Neil Moon's office to report the incident, only to see nothing happen and face departmental charges herself. Cranston's claims were backed up by statements from Neil Moon, Margaret Rowe, Michael Auld and Melinda Gavin.

Leis was informed of the investigation result in November and told that she either had to accept a transfer to Kelso High or resign.

Carenne Gate can reveal that the investigation, carried out under the guidance of Malcolm Barnett was not carried out properly and failed to consider Cranston's short but checkered history at Carenne. Staff at Bathurst SEA informed EPAC that Cranston had been the subject of a number of workers compensation claims and OH&S reports due to her relentless threats, intimidation and harassment.

EPAC was aware that Cranston was part of the reason Barbara Woolfe retired, when Cranston told staff she would expose Woolfe for not reporting therapy not being done on a student which ADHC had paid for, despite also being the aide in the class. They were also aware of Cranston being the cause of a nervous breakdown suffered by Kelly Thompson, a promising special educator who had to be relocated to Bathurst West Public and the refusal of all staff except Terry Neal to work with her last year.

In just four years at Carenne, Cranston has been the subject of many complaints and has been reported on this blog for:

• Making students walk back to the school unsupervised after a teacher fell down a drain,
• Being involved in corrupt excursion arrangements
• Taking a sexual device to a school fundraiser
• Stealing items from the school
• Inappropriately touching a student, and
  
• Not properly supervising students.

Despite objections by Neil Moon, officials at SEA have called for Angie Cranston to be sacked only to be told by EPAC it is not possible. It is apparent that EPAC are relying on unreliable information from a woman with a particular agenda to push.

EPAC passes the buck on complaints

The Department of Education and Training's Employee Performance and Conduct Directorate (EPAC) which investigates allegations against employees has once again passed the buck on a complaint about Simone Russell, who posts on this blog as "hatho".

Carenne Gate is well aware of the identity of "hatho", through both her emails to our bloggers and her postings on this blog. Several of her friends have provided Carenne Gate with the IP address embedded in emails from her sjrussell42@bigpond.com address.

Malcolm Barnett, an investigator at EPAC was contacted about vulgar and racist remarks made by Simone Russell on Sunday as well as her refusal to work with a woman of African heritage due to the colour of her skin but instead claimed that Russell was not "clearly identifiable" and that racist conduct should be reported to Neil Moon or Peter Harvey.

This is despite racism being prohibited by both anti-discrimination laws in NSW and the department's code of conduct. Breaches of the code of conduct should be investigated by EPAC.

Jrosenberg claims that the department's child protection unit threatened her

A Carenne Special School whistleblower, jrosenberg alleges that the education department's Employee Performance and Conduct unit (which includes the Serious Misconduct Unit and Child Protection Unit) threatened her for making a series of anonymous and serious complaints anonymously about her concerns at Carenne.

Rosenberg told Carenne Gate that she had previously made complaints about certain staff at Carenne in the same manner and that it was encouraged by Meredith Brown, Peter Harvey and Gail Vasic. She was told by her union that the only way to be certain of protection was to make the complaints anonymously.

Almost one year on from the threat, Rosenberg has decided to go public about the threat made by Malcolm Barnett, who describes himself in the email as "Chief Investigator".

In the email, Barnett tells Rosenberg that he is concerned about her continued claims for anonymity and that failure to come forward and assist the department could be considered to be misconduct. Rosenberg believes that Barnett was threatening to have her investigated for misconduct due to making the complaints.

The NSW Ombudsman acknowledges that complaints may be made anonymously and that anonymous complaints still receive protection under whistleblower legislation. There was no reason why the complaints could not have been dealt with by Barnett, he instead turned a blind eye to them and threatened the whistleblower involved. Mr Barnett should be criminally charged under the whistleblower legislation, but as we have seen on this very blog, the authorities are uncomfortable in taking action against certain DET staff.

When Rosenberg asked Barnett what protection could be offered to her if she came forward, Barnett didn't reply further showing how disinterested he was in the complaints.

Rosenberg states that by this stage she had heard a number of remarks made about her pseudonym Jake Rosenberg by Lee Churches, Simone Russell and Lyn Duncan. Some of these included threats to choke Rosenberg, to make sure she was dismissed, to ruin her or to attack people in her family.

The behaviour of Mr Barnett and senior Carenne staff show that they will do anything to suppress complaints.