Doug PollardIvanhoe Girls Grammar - the Head's Story
Hannah Williams & Savannah Supski
There has been a huge furore over the story of Hannah Williams, a year 11 student who wasn't allowed to take her year 10 girlfriend, Savannah Supski, to a school event at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar. Freshly Doug decided to get the headmistress's side of the story.
DOUG: If you’ve read a newspaper, watched TV, listened to the radio news at all, yesterday – you couldn’t have failed to have noticed the story of the two girls at Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School. That’s an Anglican private school in Ivanhoe, strangely enough, and the big row was about one of them not being allowed to take her girlfriend to the Year 11 formal. You may also have caught a glimpse of the headmistress of the school, Dr. Heather Schnagl and I thought it’d be an idea to get her side of the story so she joins us on the line, now. Good morning.
DR SCHNAGL: Good morning, nice to talk to you.
DOUG: Now - - -
DR SCHNAGL: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name then. Sorry.
DOUG: - - - my name is Doug.
DR SCHNAGL: Doug. Nice to talk with you, Doug.
DOUG: Nice to talk with you, Heather; now – m’mm, we saw you briefly and we saw a lot of the girls on the news in the last couple of days but we’ve only seen you rather briefly and I thought we might get your side of the story as to what’s actually happening here. The story we’re hearing is they weren’t allowed to go to the formal together because they’re a same-sex couple. Do you have a policy of barring same-sex couples from going to your formals?
DR SCHNAGL: No, we don’t. The school is actually very supportive of diversity in its community and as you can imagine, in a school community like ours we have a huge diversity of background – as you would understand, of sexual preferences – and we are very, very supportive of all individual members of our community. The Year 12 formal which is the only formal the school runs, this is not a formal - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
DR SCHNAGL: - - - same-sex partners are very welcome. The issue in this case was about a Year 10 student not being allowed to attend the Year 11 event. It is nothing to do with her same-sex nature – same-sex preference.
DOUG: Well, according to other reports there wasn’t an age check on some of the boys going there and there were boys from Year 10, there and also 18-year-old boys there?
DR SCHNAGL: The school policy states that the boys are asked to be in Year 11 or older, I must admit I’ve not stood at the door and asked them. I have great trust in our girls; but if there was a very young boy who walked in I certainly would’ve asked him that question, I certainly would also challenge any significantly older man who entered the venue because that’s not appropriate either. So it was really, not wanting to make a distinction between many Year 10s who would’ve loved to attend the Year 11 event – so, just making that as a general thing it’s a Year 11 event and it was inappropriate for Year 10s to attend.
DOUG: Okay – so, if a girlfriend had been in Year 11 there wouldn’t have been a problem?
DR SCHNAGL: That’s correct.
DOUG: I read a piece on Crikey.com yesterday from someone who used to attend your school - - -
DR SCHNAGL: M’mm, m’mm?
DOUG: - - - Jessica Crouch - - -
DR SCHNAGL: Yes.
DOUG: She was a former prefect and house captain – and she said that when she was at your school there was as she put it: “a strong pressure” to – m’mm, bring boys to these dos and to socialise with boys. She felt that was very restricting of her.
DR SCHNAGL: M’mm, as an all-girls’ school on of the questions(sic) our parents do ask us to provide is a couple of social events and we used to try doing one at each of the Years 9, 10 and 11 where the girls had the opportunity to socialise with young men. Or boys – and sadly, that is proving too difficult to do in a way; so we’re a school that has an all-girls environment all-day-every-day - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
DR SCHNAGL: - - - and we celebrate girls’ learning and girls’ achievements. We certainly don’t make any distinction between girls who may be same or opposite-sex attracted – they actually – same-sex attracted girls live in an all girls’ environment. I’m not making any judgments but many adolescent girls experiment with same-sex attraction in their – or from my experience, I’ve watched them experiment with that in their adolescent years and then they may-or-may-not decide to be later on. I realise it’s not necessarily a decision they make it’s just how it pans out – but the reality is - - -
DOUG: Well I think adolescent sexuality – it’s not just girls it’s boys as well, I think – does tend to be - - -
DR SCHNAGL: I’m sorry, I’m not anywhere near as – m’mm, experienced - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
DR SCHNAGL: - - - working with adolescent boys. So I certainly would not comment on - - -
DOUG: But it is a well known thing that adolescents generally, experiment - - -
DR SCHNAGL: Yes, absolutely.
DOUG: - - - sexuality is somewhat fluid and I think what a lot of people were upset about was the idea there should be – that it sounded as though you were barring off same-sex experimentation in the way you were disapproving of it, by this decision.
DR SCHNAGL: Definitely not. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that yesterday a past student rang in to John Faine and said how as a same-sex student(sic) from two years ago, how supported she’d been in all her time in the school and her mother who’s one of a same-sex couple chose of her own volition to talk to the media herself and be on television last night, as to how supportive the school had been of her. As a same-sex – member of a same-sex couple and her daughter as she came to terms with her own sexuality. I’ve had several contacts from both current and past staff members who are in same-sex relationships, about how supportive the school had been of them and how disappointed they were that a school that had been supportive – and one that’s just in front of me at the moment:
[reads]
“I’m paying you the highest compliment. It was never an issue, you just were very supportive of me and my partner ...”
and that – she was very upset, that the issue was being changed to one of disapproval of – supposed disapproval – of same-sex partnerships when the reality is, we’re very supportive of them.
DOUG: Yeah – one thing, obviously, I’m getting listeners messaging in to me at the moment - - -
DR SCHNAGL: Of course you are.
DOUG: I’ve been asked to ask you about how you handle any issue with bullying of people who are same-sex attracted, at your school?
DR SCHNAGL: I can assure you that bullying is something which is taken incredibly seriously no matter what the cause of the bullying is and we are working very strongly not only on anti-bullying policies but also on restorative justice practises. Our school has gone down the pathway of restorative justice practise where anyone – m’mm, it’s about students learning to take responsibility for their actions and addressing the hurt that may have been caused from those actions. So - - -
DOUG: But do you have anything specifically in place to address homophobic bullying is what I’m asking?
DR SCHNAGL: We have practises in place to address bullying of any sort. Not just homophobic. Any bullying is totally and utterly unaccepted in our school - - -
DOUG: Yeah, I was wondering – you know, I’ve been interviewing regularly on this programme - - -
DR SCHNAGL: M’mm, m’mm?
DOUG: - - - a gentleman called Daniel Witthaus, whom I think you may have met? Or at least heard of - - -
DR SCHNAGL: I’ve heard of.
DOUG: He was talking about your school, in fact, on Radio National the other day. Saying you were one of the more enlightened schools so you’ve got a tick from him – m’mm, but one of the things about, when you say ‘we have policies in place to address all kinds of bullying’ that’s all well-and-good. But we hear a lot of this from people like the AFL and from other people saying oh well, you’re just covered under our general, anti-bullying policy. You’re covered under our anti-discrimination policy but they don’t address any of the specific issues - - -
DR SCHNAGL: We certainly do address and we celebrate – the school celebrates its – I’ve written on the front page of a newsletter, congratulations to a same-sex staff couple on the birth of a daughter. Shown photos of the couple with their daughter so it’s been very, very public. It’s not a back-foot exercise. We celebrate the diversity - - -
DOUG: That’s what I wanted to clarify.
DR SCHNAGL: We celebrate the diversity in our community. In all different ways.
DOUG: One or two people have raised the issue that you are an Anglican school and therefore you teach a Christian ethos; that does not prevent you from being accepting of same-sex couples?
DR SCHNAGL: No it does not; we are a school affiliated with the Anglican Church but we are a very – multi-faith community, we are not solely accepting of Anglican students. We are a very multi-faith(sic) community.
DOUG: A question someone else has sent in, you’ve heard of the Safe Schools Coalition that Bronwyn Pike has launched in Victoria. Is your school a member?
DR SCHNAGL: We are not currently but we will be joining next year.
DOUG: Right, well that’s very good. Congratulations.
DR SCHNAGL: Thank you.
DOUG: Another question here - - -
DR SCHNAGL: Of course, according to Michael Carr-Gregg yesterday, we ticked all six boxes. We do run staff professional development regarding same-sex couples. We do run some student health classes regarding same sex couples so it is part of our curriculum.
DOUG: Right. Mike has written to say:
[reads]
“Did you really say according to The Age, that you didn’t feel it was appropriate the girls felt discriminated against and you were upset ... who is she to determine if it’s appropriate to feel discriminated against ...”
DR SCHNAGL: I said I was very saddened that the girls felt discriminated against because it was not our intention, our intention was to run a Year 11 event. So, much of what you say is often misconstrued.
DOUG: You must’ve had a lot of press crawling all over your school yesterday, by the look of things?
DR SCHNAGL: Yes, it was a busy day.
DOUG: It was a busy day – so, let’s just get this straight – you do create an inclusive environment for your same-sex students?
DR SCHNAGL: We try very hard to, yes.
DOUG: You do accept same-sex couples at your events – like, this one including at your formal Formal(sic) which is the Year 12 one?
DR SCHNAGL: The Year 12 one, yes. We do.
DOUG: Yes. You are joining the Safe Schools Coalition - - -
DR SCHNAGL: That is our current plan, that’s a thing to look at for next year. That’s our current plan, yes.
DOUG: Okay – well, I’m glad we’ve managed to put the record a little bit straighter for you.
DR SCHNAGL: Thank you very much Doug, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you.
DOUG: You’re welcome - - -
DR SCHNAGL: Thank you.
DOUG: - - - and good luck with next year.
DR SCHNAGL: Thank you, ‘bye ‘bye.
DOUG: ‘Bye, ‘bye. That was Dr. Heather Schnagl, the headmistress of Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School who doesn’t sound quite as homophobic or exclusionary as she’s been painted.
