We as the Call4Action team and students at Adelaide High School were disheartened by the email sent out by Principal Cez Green to parents and caregivers on Friday the 21st of May. Not only was the email disappointing and lack-lustre in its contents but it only further encapsulates the schools overarching priority of image over their students’ opinions and wellbeing. After starting our movement to provoke systematic change within the community and receiving mass student support in return, we expected the school and its leadership to take accountability for their own wrongdoings and perpetuation of the toxic cultures. Possibly issuing a statement of apology to its students and their respective parents or caregivers. Instead, the parents and caregivers were presented with an email detailing misleading and vague information. It was noted that the school "works very hard through their curriculum offerings and use of additional wellbeing programs”, yet we as students have been left confused, as we are unable to recognize or identify what exactly these curriculum offerings and "additional" wellbeing programs are. We ask of you Cez, to please note in detail what exactly these offerings are and how can we learn more about them and gain access to them? Your email is our first hearing of such amazing thorough offerings.

You state that "sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour is neither accepted nor tolerated" yet your responses to student complaints, experiences and advice continually reflect otherwise. Students have collectively reported to feel as though their experiences and complaints have been either minimised or neglected; the school not offering proper support or action against perpetrators. These microaggressions that have been completely brushed under the carpet leads to far more insidious misogyny and violence manifesting within in the school community. Various students: a majority female, recount being gaslight or having their experiences minimised when they went to report to staff or leadership. "you're being irrational" one recounts, another recounts a male staff member saying, "It really isn't that big of a deal". Students constantly must deal with being told they're irrational, blowing things out of proportion, overexaggerating or being too emotional; and we are sick of it. The schools lack of appropriate responses to victims’ complaints has set a gross precedent in the community, where perpetrators can knowingly commit harassment, hate or violence and continue to exist with the comforting knowledge that they will face little to no repercussion or punishment.

Cez Green claims that "the school has several mechanisms in place to respond to reports of harassment, or inappropriate behaviour", however, it has been noted that the school and its leadership have been known to ask or in their own words "recommend", that students find a new school as there is nothing they can do to fix the issues the students have reported. This response has been reported by various female students and victims of assault or harassment, the perpetrators usually getting away with their crimes or behaviours against other students and retaining their place in the community. We find it despicable and gross that victims must relocate schools to escape their abusers. The leaders and admin of the school should feel disgusted with themselves after all the pain they have chosen to neglect. They have left countless young people distraught and traumatized, the only thing hurting the community is their negligence to their students and their refusal to take accountability.

Cez Greens response email was tone-deaf and insulting to the community as a whole and the victims who are suffering due to the school’s refusal to take accountability. The email read as ‘we are choosing not to look into the students’ complaints as we feel we’re already doing enough’, and that sort of response is not good enough. Our petition and movement have been quite responsible in our demands and vision for the school. The leaderships decision to go into damage control shows how at the end of the day image is the only thing they care about. Instead of attempting to portray the school as something it is not, put in the work to create an ideal and safe school community. Enough is enough, your time is up, and our voices will not be silenced.

Be better.

Sincerely, the Call4Action Team