A Montessori school in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, has been accused of operating illegally.
The independent school, which offers classes from nursery to junior primary, is also alleged to have problems with hygiene, security and parking.
The school is modelled on a Montessori school in London, which was inspired by an Italian Maria Montessori. The name Montessori is a highly regarded international education brand.
The school denies the allegations, claiming that some parents simply have ‘an axe to grind”. But, according to the Gauteng department of education, the school is ‘operating illegally” as its application for registration is still being processed.
The allegations against the school appear to stem from a soured relationship between the directors, Pat and Alan Darby, and Samantha Pillay, whose two children were enrolled at the school until last year. Pillay claimed that a fall-out with the owners led to the expulsion of her children.
According to Pillay, the Darbys did not take kindly to her distributing notices at the school’s entrance inviting parents to a meeting to form a parents’ association.
A letter signed by Pat Darby and addressed to Pillay’s husband confirms this. In it Darby says they ‘regret these strong measures —but we have been compelled to do so because of your wife’s unacceptable behaviour, which has now reached the stage of being intolerable to the school’s directors, the staff and many parents”.
Darby claimed she did not expel the children, but expelled their mother.
Aggrieved, Pillay decided to challenge the decision and in the process ‘discovered” that the school was not properly registered with Gauteng department of education.
She claimed that some of the parents who came to know about this development decided to take their children out of the school. One of them is Alexandre Texeira, the chairperson of a local rate-payers’ association.
Texeira and Pillay highlighted other concerns at the school such as poor hygiene, lax security and non-compliance with road traffic specification for parking during ‘drop off and pick up” times.
But the school’s co-directors and principal Sharlene Houghton dismissed these claims.
Darby said the school has eight toilets, which the department of health said ‘is more than adequate for the number of children we have at the school”.
She said there is not much the school can do about parking, because most parents do not need to park their cars, as they only come to ‘drop and pick up their children”.
As for security ‘we have secure walls equipped with electric fence and 24-hour and permanent security guard”, said Darby.
Darby said it is interesting that it is ‘ex-parent[s]” who are making these claims. She said Pillay and Texeira ‘clearly have an axe to grind” and claimed that the school enjoyed full support from the remainder of the parents.
Darby said the school sent an application for registration with the education department in June last year. ‘Since then we have successfully undergone all the necessary inspections and await a registration number, which is imminent.”
Houghton added that the department has said this should be ready within two weeks.
Asked why it took so long to register the school, Darby said since the school opened in 2002 the priority was to secure ‘the consent of use” from the local council. She said that the number of learners they had at the time was so small they did not have to register with the education department.
‘We appointed a town planner, who started the consent use process before we opened the school in 2002. Nobody could have foreseen that it would take almost three years to complete. This caused a delay in our application to register the primary school. The application, together with all the necessary documentation to register [a school] was finally delivered by hand to the department,” said Darby.
But education department spokesperson Mbela Phetlhe, who confirmed receipt of documentation for registration of the school, said the school is operating illegally as its application still awaits the signatures of the head of department and the minister.
‘An application has been received for the registration of the school. In terms of the application, the school complies with all the requirements. [But] the application has not been approved — it’s still in the process of being signed by the head of department and finally the [minister]. Therefore it is true that the school is operating illegally.”
Phetlhe warned that the onus lies with parent to insist on a registration number from a school when they register their children.