Kerikeri's Westmount School pays sacked teacher Suzette Martin $27,700

An Exclusive Brethren school has to pay nearly $28,000 compensation to a teacher it sacked for handing her students a contemporary interpretation of text from Shakespeare's King Lear without approval from the school committee.
Kerikeri's Westmount School fired English teacher Suzette Martin in July 2009 - two years after she was employed - for "corruptly and morally defiling her students" in Year 13 through use of the text.
Her employment agreement required the 41-year-old single parent of Whangarei to seek and obtain the school's approval for her use of teaching material.
Ms Martin had used a modern version of King Lear she had found on the internet to fulfil NCEA requirements.
She went to the Employment Relations Authority, claiming unfair dismissal, but lost and subsequently argued her case in the Employment Court, which has now ruled in her favour.
King Lear was included in the English programme for Y13 students in 2008 but Ms Martin had such considerable professional difficulties with the text and its modern translation that she abandoned teaching the play.
Trustee Daryl Maden authorised her to obtain information she considered necessary after she expressed concern about the lack of approved supporting material for the study of that version of the play.
However, she had to obtain his approval before showing this to students.
A parent raised his concern with Mr Maden in June 2009 that material she taught made students uncomfortable and embarrassed.
Ms Martin was dismissed following a disciplinary meeting in July.
Chief Employment Court Judge Graham Colgan said despite applying for numerous teaching positions through Northland and even in Auckland since, she had not been successful.
Ms Martin neither sought to be reinstated in her former position nor claimed compensation for her significantly reduced income since obtaining work as a part-time hotel receptionist and cleaner.
Her principal concern was for vindication of her good name as a teacher.
She moved in with her mother to make ends meet.
"Although she did not put it this way, it is not difficult to imagine that she found demeaning the move from professionally qualified secondary school teacher to part-time hotel receptionist and cleaner as a consequence of her dismissal and subsequent inability to obtain alternative teaching employment," Judge Colgan said.
Judge Colgan found that Ms Martin was not careless in not obtaining Mr Maden's consent and ordered that she be paid $12,710 for lost remuneration and $15,000 as compensation.
The school's principal, who identified himself only as Selwyn, said the court outcome was disappointing and that the trust would investigate options, without being specific.
Westmount School is run by the Northland Education Trust and although all students at the school are members of the Exclusive Brethren, none of the teachers is.