Ms Angela Dunne:

We made a very detailed submission and put a lot of work into it. We included ten recommendations which are simple and practical, such as secretarial support, that would provide immediate relief for us. This has to be approached in the short, medium and long term. Senator Ruane asked whether we should seek to no longer teach. The rate of change has been very slow over the past 20 years. This was identified more than 20 years ago as a very serious problem. Our union and the IPPN have represented us and incrementally have won small gains. We have been told by the Government we should be happy with this and that we have an extra day off. The optics of this are bad. A disconnect between teachers and principals and the Department has been mentioned. How would the average person understand the complexity of the role of principal given how the Minister discusses the days in question? They are far from days off. They are days meant to be spent on administrative duties. We are fully charged with the same administrative burdens as an administrative principal but have to teach a full class on top of this.

The reality is that in the last few years those administrative days have not been spent on administrative duties. They have been spent going to training on the latest circular, which will have been sent to us without any consultation from the Department. There were 88 circulars in the last year alone. Not every circular pertained to primary education, but quite a number did. In our submission we have outlined the legislative changes that have come in since 2011. In each year there were two or three such changes, but in 2018 there were seven or eight, all of which had massive implications for our boards of management, and which literally fall back on the principals. The boards are voluntary, and members sometimes have no background in education. All the will and moral support in the world is not going to get that work done. It all falls onto our lap. There is quite a legal burden on principals as a result of this. It is an onerous task; one cannot make mistakes with it. The pressure is mounting all the time. The rate of change has been so slow, so we never believed it was possible to ask for more. We are trying to be reasonable in our approach to this. We know are only one of many groups looking for changes in the budget.

Senator Gavan asked if there was a lack of political will. Principals have been holding this up. It has been papered over for years because we are generally a stoic, hardworking bunch of people who are publicly vulnerable. We want our schools to be represented in the best light possible. We are fire-fighting myriad issues at any one time, and do not want bad optics for our schools. We keep going and wait for someone to tell us to stop and to say that the way things are is unsustainable. We now find ourselves in a position where we have to do that, because we are suffering so much with our health that we cannot allow it to transfer on to children. We do not want to see that happen. Everything we do is for the children in our schools, and for their holistic education. We find that we are being squeezed so hard with administrative and teaching duties that the voluntary things which make a school the excellent centre of learning a principal wants it to be and which put the icing on the cake for the children are being squeezed out. When we look for change we are told that we do not have to participate in the green flag programme or similar things. We want to participate in such programmes - they are good for the children in the school - and schools are optically at a disadvantage if a school down the road has ten flags and another does not. Some small schools are suffering from the desperate legacy of cuts some years ago. They are at the mercy of a magic number every year in order to retain a teacher. If they lose a teacher the implications across a school are huge. In order to go from teaching two mainstream classes to three the entire whole-school plan has to change. One is then fighting harder than ever to get a teacher back because the appointment figure is higher than the retention figure. The one teacher who might be missing is so invaluable to the whole school.

We looked for one release day a week immediately to help us to survive in this role. Our second recommendation was that there would be a review of the criteria for achieving administrative status. The Chair mentioned that the photograph presented was similar to the situation in my school. I manage 23 staff in my four-teacher school, as the Department refers to it; there are four mainstream classes. We also have an autistic spectrum disorder, ASD, unit, which comprises two classes. I use the word "unit" because that is the word the Department gave us for it. We have two special education teachers and ten special needs assistants, SNAs. We have a high level of special needs in mainstream as well as in the ASD unit, and we pride ourselves on inclusivity. We work very hard and have a wonderful staff. It works, but I would be lying if I said that the effort involved in it is not excessive at times. As a teaching principal, it is almost impossible at times to keep on top of it all. One tries very hard. I teach my daughter at the moment, which put this issue under a huge microscope for me last year. With the best will in the world, no matter how hard I prepare and no matter how much midnight oil I burn it still is not enough to safeguard the educational experience of my daughter and her fellow pupils. This applies to all teaching principals in our forum. The pupils might achieve their educational targets because I drive it as much as I can, but they are missing out in other ways, for example, the consistency provided by having a teacher in the classroom all the time. The substitute shortage has really escalated this problem, because if I cannot find a substitute teacher to cover my release day I have to split that class between the other classes in the school.

The alternative is to not take the day and to miss out on the training that I need to implement the legislation that I am charged with rolling out in the school. I am constantly trying to reassure parents of children in my class that I am doing my best for the children and trying to ensure they are not missing out. Nobody wants teaching a class to be seen as a poisoned chalice, and nobody wants parents to not want the principal to be teaching their children. I pride myself on my work as a teacher but a parent said to me last year that it is a pity that I am the principal because I am such a good teacher apart from that. Teaching principals give their best to both roles, leading a school community as best as he or she can. I take huge pride in our school and our staff. We have pushed the boat out on every conceivable level but, again, that is reflective of principals in general.

We are here to ask that the committee considers these recommendations. They are practical, and the cost to the Exchequer, considering the damage that is being done to our education system, is relatively small. If we were given one release day a week in the short term and if the criteria for achieving administrative status was reviewed, it would be fairer. Currently, I have 25 release days. There are 94 pupils in the school. If I achieve the magic number of 113 pupils, I will suddenly go from 25 days a year to 183 days a year with an ASD unit. There is no sense to that. A colleague in south Tipperary had 112 children in her school. She was a teaching principal and was setting up an ASD class. The following year she got an extra teacher, and went from 25 release days a year to 183. She said that it saved her life, and that she genuinely could not stay in the role without it. We are not the anomaly we thought we were. This is a nationwide problem.

Deputy Catherine Martin asked about ongoing disruptions to our classes. We do the best we can to plan for such situations. I am militant about interruptions to my class, which means that staff are lined up at the end of the day to meet me. They have to consult their principal teacher. One goes into work at 8 in the morning and finishes teaching at 3 p.m.. One is in school until half four or five o'clock liaising with staff, be it SNAs or teachers, about team teachers, whole-school planning or policy, one is meeting parents. One then goes home to his or her life and looks after his or her children. Where is the time to plan for classes and to do all of the administrative work involved? That work is done between ten o'clock and one o'clock every night of the week. That is not unusual across the board. I love the job, for all the complaints I am making. I get €15 a day after tax. That is the stark reality of the situation. Principal teachers such as myself did not apply for this job to make money, but rather because we were passionate about education. However, we have reached a critical point. I came across a quote in preparation for the meeting from an American educator called Tom Whittaker. He said that the culture of any organisation is shaped by the worst behaviour the leader is willing to tolerate. We have got to the point now where the treatment of principal teachers is beyond horrendous. It is indefensible; enough is enough. The big issue going forward, in terms of the disconnect that exists, is that principal teachers have to be consulted about change. We are creative. We know the solutions. We know what is needed in our schools, but we are not consulted and have no way of stopping this. There is no mechanism to stop it.

Seamus Mulconry from the CPSMA wrote a good article entitled, "The Devil's Advocate", in which he recommended a filtering mechanism for all the initiatives being thrown at schools by the Department, Tusla or other agencies. We have to liaise with them, and we have provided an extensive list in our submission. The initiatives have to go through a filtering system before they land on our desks. At the moment they are arriving from all angles, and we have to make sense of them, make policies from them and bring them back to our staff and find time to introduce, implement, monitor and embed them. There is no time to do that before the next thing is thrown at us. Optically these policies look wonderful in press releases, for example, the well-being policy. Many of us are well ahead of the game in respect of that policy.

We have identified anxiety as a major problem for our pupils, especially since the economic recession. Anxiety has definitely come about as a result of it. Schoolchildren are absorbing anxiety from society and their parents. Unofficially and outside of the curriculum we have been implementing well-being for several years. Recently, the Minister released a well-being policy. Schools are supposed to open a room where a child with anxiety can go during the day. It sounds fantastic, but who will build and supervise the room? Who will write the policies around the room? The optics make it look like we are not trying this or interested in it.

The same applies to ASD classes. Many of us have opened our doors to such classes and many more would love to, but they simply do not have the buildings or resources to go with it. This was flagged a long time ago. When we were opening our ASD class, I contacted the NSCE. I was given an additional ten release days that year to manage the workload pending policy advice from the council. I contacted the lady who wrote the policy advice and outlined how there did not seem to be any forward thinking and that it would become a major issue, especially for teaching principals who do not have the time to manage this. I asked her to make a recommendation in the policy to allow teaching principals to get some consideration but nothing came from that. The following year, the ten days were taken from me and I have not got them back since. I have not got one concession for having to manage it, yet I am such an advocate for special needs that I will be at FÉILTE in October with a stand advocating for more schools to open ASD classes because I feel so passionately about it. However, it would be remiss of me to do that without giving the full picture because it could led to someone walking into a situation whereby she would be unable to cope with the workload. Powers to compel schools to open classes sounds grand. Many schools would love to open classes if the resources and supports were put in place.