The drama at South Peninsula High School is over and veteran principal Brian Isaacs has officially been fired.
On Friday, Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schafer dismissed the outspoken principal’s appeal against his sacking, ending Isaacs’s more than 30-year tenure as head of the school.
Isaacs has declined to comment.
He was fired in June after being found guilty of charges of misconduct in the workplace.
The Department said in a statement: “Isaacs was found guilty of giving false statements concerning his employer in terms of the Employment of Educators Act.”
“The presiding officer found Isaacs guilty of two charges of disrespect or abusive or insolent behaviour towards officials and not guilty of issuing an unlawful instruction to a staff member,” the statement reads.
The charges stemmed from an incident in which the principal shouted at the then-circuit manager, a Mr Naidoo, who was delivering a notice for a disciplinary hearing to the school’s secretary.
Isaacs reportedly screamed at Naidoo to “leave my school”, also calling him a “spineless creature and spineless bureaucrat”.
He was also found guilty of bringing the Education Department into disrepute when he wrote a letter, published in the Cape Argus on November 2, 2015, saying the department used “children to attack teachers”.
In his letter, the principal blamed the department for ill-discipline in schools, saying he had “experienced the rudeness and smugness of department officials and presiding officers”.
Dismissing his appeal, Schafer said “no reasons were advanced as to why the factual findings which were made were incorrect”.
The MEC also adds: “The presiding officer said in his findings that long service and good results of the school could not be used as an excuse to justify blatant misconduct.”