Enable TES elected parents to be active players in compliance with TES Constitution

Everyone seems to be reinforcing on the transparency issue here. As a teaching parent here at BPS, I've received tons of whatsapp and Line group messages from fellow parents. Everybody is after the BOD over the BOG issue. Nevertheless, under the hood, there is a lot of transparency issue in BPS at the moment which no one talks about. It's only because teachers are at the receiving end and a regular parent have no idea who's playing the ball at TES. I would like to address the following issues and ask parents if they agree it was carried out with transparency. 1. Karen's removal from Assistant head post. The only reason behind this self-directed demotion is that she don't agree with every decision Katrina Millward (here on KM) makes in SLT. Katrina can't have her way in Foundation stage where Karen is in-charge. 2. Several candidates applied for the assistant head position KM holds. Upon KM's hire, Duncan made every other candidates feel unwelcome at TES to such a bitter level that they departed TES last year. Thus we lost experienced teachers like Julie Wickim, Melanie Hall and Siobhan Barkar. Their fault? They applied for the same assistant head position as KM did. 3. Is a media/advertisement work background suitable for being English enrichment teacher at reception? 4. We have hired a new deputy head for next year. Despite applicants who are already working as deputy head in other schools, we hired someone who is a full time Y5 class teacher + assistant head. The reason? He is from the school where KM visited twice in past 2 years and got all her ideas of ILR and assessment. 5. We have highly paid legacy leader at BPS. No one at BPS has a clear idea about her weekly job description. Or is she there because she is a family friend of Millwards? 6. We have an integrated curriculum leader at BPS. She is ranked same as the Class Curriculum leaders. No one knows what is her job description. Or is she holding the position because she is a former coll

Everyone seems to be reinforcing on the transparency issue here. As a teaching parent here at BPS, I've received tons of whatsapp and Line group messages from fellow parents. Everybody is after the BOD over the BOG issue. Nevertheless, under the hood, there is a lot of transparency issue in BPS at the moment which no one talks about. It's only because teachers are at the receiving end and a regular parent have no idea who's playing the ball at TES. I would like to address the following issues and ask parents if they agree it was carried out with transparency. 1. Karen's removal from Assistant head post. The only reason behind this self-directed demotion is that she don't agree with every decision Katrina Millward (here on KM) makes in SLT. Katrina can't have her way in Foundation stage where Karen is in-charge. 2. Several candidates applied for the assistant head position KM holds. Upon KM's hire, Duncan made every other candidates feel unwelcome at TES to such a bitter level that they departed TES last year. Thus we lost experienced teachers like Julie Wickim, Melanie Hall and Siobhan Barkar. Their fault? They applied for the same assistant head position as KM did. 3. Is a media/advertisement work background suitable for being English enrichment teacher at reception? 4. We have hired a new deputy head for next year. Despite applicants who are already working as deputy head in other schools, we hired someone who is a full time Y5 class teacher + assistant head. The reason? He is from the school where KM visited twice in past 2 years and got all her ideas of ILR and assessment. 5. We have highly paid legacy leader at BPS. No one at BPS has a clear idea about her weekly job description. Or is she there because she is a family friend of Millwards? 6. We have an integrated curriculum leader at BPS. She is ranked same as the Class Curriculum leaders. No one knows what is her job description. Or is she holding the position because she is a former coll

Siegfried gschliesser German section parent

I am not agree for this.

Totally agree with the petition.

Agree

Danke schöne Günter! We fully agree with your point. Transparency!

I completely not understand the relationship of BOG, BOD and C.E.O. but I fully agree that parents voices must be heard and democratic value must be kept and they are core value of our school.

Parents of Maximilian (H2, 10 klasse) and Alexander (H1, 9 klasse).

Any changes made to the organisational structure must follow the existing rules. Transparency and involving the stakeholders (meaning democratic participation) are core European values and part of the TES identity. Important decisions must not be made behind closed doors. A first step: make the current TES constitution available to everybody on the school website!

It is important to hold up European values of transparency, democracy and resist authoritarian tendencies. This is the core of the whole issue. Even though this is about an institution in Taiwan, we should uphold these universal values.

I don't fully understand all of the issues but I agree that the patents' voice in any important matters hould be heard

French

Thank you for all the background information!

Thanks for the explanation, that bring the facts more clear to us .

The BOG must be responsible for the governance of the school

Thank you Henri-Jean for giving TES parents a well deserved history lesson! This gives a lot of context to the Chairs' petition. For those who don't know Henri-Jean Fontaine, he has been French Section Chair (so Governor) for many years!

Our school has a long history. And the origin of the TES as Taipei European School is the Taipei European SchoolS (with a S.) A shelter for 3 schools as it was. When the 3 schools united under one roof, the idea was to share facilities and have more weight in negotiation for ground, loan, facility development, etc. This new framework supported the development of the school as a whole with respect to the specificities and the obligations of each school, that constitutes until today the origine and the basis of TES. HOW THE SCHOOL WORK/WORKED? - On the top of its organisation stands the BOD (Board of Directors). BOD members are the guarantors of the school and they are responsible for it (and we should thank them and be respectful for that without any doubt … the problem is elsewhere). Basically, The BOD meets twice a year, signs for the big projects, loans and the budget proposed by the BOG (Board of Governors). It seems that in Taiwan, a Foundation legally needs to have 2/3 of Taiwanese on its board. They were more members in the past, but last few years only nine. BOD delegates the governance of TES to the Board of Governors (BOG). BOG delegates the day-to-day management of TES to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). - BOG: shortly, members meet 10 to 11 times a year, manage and audit the financial operations of the school, establish the strategy, propose budget and investment, recommend appointment of CEO, recommend and refer to BOD all issues (legal, etc), all to be reviewed and approved by the BOD at the end. We could easily say that BOG proposes to BOD the budget of the school and what is common to the 4 sections. BOG recommends, BOD approves. BOG has 8 members. Four are each Section Chair (4 sections in TES since BS is divided in 2 sections, primary and high school) who are elected inside each section among the elected parents of the Section Council. The four other members are elected among all sections by parents. - The management of each

Please check the TES parents forum on Facebook.

We have the same wish!