NEWCASTLE Grammar has reduced the working hours of 15 staff members in response to COVID-19, in a move that has raised the union's concerns but the school has defended as necessary.
Head of school, Erica Thomas, said 15 of the school's 170 employees - 10 operational staff and five primary teachers working in specialist areas of music, art, Mandarin and technology - have had their working hours temporarily reduced. Most are taking owed leave or job sharing.
One is on "complete leave". "We are in unprecedented times and did not know how long this was going to go for," Ms Thomas said.
"When we don't have students here it's very difficult to provide a level of work for every member of staff. When we had to go to the online model we worked out where our priorities were."
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She said the model for primary focuses on literacy and numeracy, with the classroom teacher only. "People that are specialists have been asked ... to put some lessons on our online learning platform for students to do, but it's not the same as being here, they don't have timetabled lessons ... we can't do it all with very small children."
Independent Education Union NSW/ACT branch secretary Mark Northam said the Education Act "said all elements of the curriculum should be taught".
"There would be ways to do it and retain staff," he said.
Ms Thomas said she'd met with each employee to come to a "mutual place" and "most people have done it really really happily".
"We met with them and said 'These are the particular things we're going to try to manage over the next few months' and they were allowed to say what they would like to do," she said.
"It's really hard and I don't want to be responsible for anyone losing their livelihoods, but at some point I've got to protect the environment we're currently in and I've got to respond to it.
"They understand this is an unusual crisis, it's something that is placing pressure on the school and they've been incredibly good in terms of being just so responsible."
She said employees had received "normal salaries" until the middle or end of the holidays. She said she'd review the new arrangements in the fourth week of term. "We've been very clear we want them all back."
Mr Northam called on the school not to proceed. "It seems unnecessarily hasty in terms of NSW returning to school [sites] ... from May 11 and in the context of Hunter Valley Grammar's announcement [that students and staff can return to campus from April 28] that you'd be seeking to unilaterally reduce people's work. There's been an absence of consultation and an unnecessary rush to this.
"It's an unreasonable approach to take in the circumstances. It should be urgently reconsidered."
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