The story of an initiation that has divided a school and a city
Last Friday, Pene Kimber had finally had enough. Her son had returned home from Parktown Boys' High School, where he was a weekly boarder, the week before and and had sworn her to silence when she noticed the bruises on his backside and lower back.
She found out that he and the other Grade 11 boys at the school's Druce Hall hostel had been assaulted in a midnight initiation on February 2 culminating in a beating from the school's head boy.
Her son wouldn't let her say anything, insisting that the school's disciplinary process run its course, because, as a brand new boarder this year who had transferred from Rondebosch Boys' in Cape Town, he didn't want to stick out.
So Kimber held her peace.
Last Friday, the school e-mailed the affected Grade 11 children's parents, informing them that a Druce Hall committee of the deputy headmaster Brent Saunders, who is also in charge of the house, and three other masters had found 12 matrics guilty and sentenced them to community service, the loss of their matric privileges for the remainder of the first term, three two-hour detentions on Friday afternoons, maintenance tasks at the hostel and a final warning letter on their records.
The letter reminded parents that the committee had treated previous infractions seriously and had, in fact, expelled two pupils from the hostel the year before.
They were also "to actively discourage any form of recrimination against the Grade 11 learners".
She found out that he and the other Grade 11 boys at the school's Druce Hall hostel had been assaulted in a midnight initiation on February 2 culminating in a beating from the school's head boy.
Her son wouldn't let her say anything, insisting that the school's disciplinary process run its course, because, as a brand new boarder this year who had transferred from Rondebosch Boys' in Cape Town, he didn't want to stick out.
So Kimber held her peace.
Last Friday, the school e-mailed the affected Grade 11 children's parents, informing them that a Druce Hall committee of the deputy headmaster Brent Saunders, who is also in charge of the house, and three other masters had found 12 matrics guilty and sentenced them to community service, the loss of their matric privileges for the remainder of the first term, three two-hour detentions on Friday afternoons, maintenance tasks at the hostel and a final warning letter on their records.
The letter reminded parents that the committee had treated previous infractions seriously and had, in fact, expelled two pupils from the hostel the year before.
They were also "to actively discourage any form of recrimination against the Grade 11 learners".
He said he hadn't had time to read the findings. He didn't know, he said, that the boys had been forced to smear Deep Heat on their naked bodies.
He told her to bring her documented proof so that he could act. Instead, she demanded that she be allowed to speak to the Grade 11 pupils who had been subject to the beatings.
This was agreed to and Kimber addressed them that afternoon.
"Parrot fashion, they all said 'We needed to get closer to the matrics and we deserved it'."
Disgusted, she left.
That night, her son was isolated at the hostel dining hall and told not to sit where he had been sitting for the previous four weeks because "I was no longer wanted at this table".
He felt intimidated, so he phoned his mother.
Kimber fetched her son, and the next day The Star broke the story.
What followed was an outcry of unprecedented proportions. That night, Clarke was told to his face by a caller on Kieno Kammies' talkshow on 702 Talk Radio that he would have beaten Clarke up with a baseball bat in his office if it had been his son who had been initiated.
Other callers phoned in to berate Kimber, telling her how they had been made into the men they were because of their time at Parktown and how her revelations to the press were damaging the school.
The process repeated itself in cyberspace, with Parktown old boys coming forward to speak either of their horrific experiences at the school, which, until this week, they had been unable to speak about, or to defend a school they believed had given them the foundations they needed to be successful.
Kimber received threatening cellphone calls from several angry Parktown parents, and eventually switched her phone off. "Where did they get my phone number from?" she mused this week. "I'm new to Joburg, and only the school had it. They must have given it out."
Throughout the week, The Star received SMSs, e-mails and phone calls regarding abuse, not just at Parktown, but at boys' schools all over Joburg.
By Thursday, revelations of initiations at other, unnamed, schools were alluding to sexual abuse and harassment.
Clarke, after going on air on Tuesday night, had been promptly muzzled by the Gauteng Department of Education on Wednesday.
Clarke would not speak to the Saturday Star because of the department's instructions. On air, though, he had been at pains to explain that Druce Hall, although run by teachers to accommodate Parktown boys, was autonomous and run by a parents' committee.
Marc McLean, the chairperson of the Druce Hall parents' committee, explained to the Saturday Star that although the hostel was on school grounds, it was autonomous and that it was he who had initiated the disciplinary proceedings.
"My son is in Druce Hall and has been for four years - it's exactly as it was written. There was an initiation and the boys were assaulted. It has never been denied."
McLean says it was Saunders and himself who informed the parents, including Kimber, of what had happened, not her son.
"The incident happened on February 2, a Monday night. The boys got home that Friday. By the next Monday morning, the Grade 12s were off the property, suspended for five days.
"We sent out an e-mail to the affected parents, and I have an e-mail from Pene Kimber asking what had happened and if her son was all right. Her son didn't tell her - we did."
McLean denied too that Kimber's son had been made to run 15 laps.
"He couldn't - he was on crutches because of a sports injury. In any case, there's nothing sinister about running 15 laps round the rugby field - the children do it every night, they call it hostel sports, and it's part of the culture."
The hostel disciplinary committee met last Friday and imposed the sanction on the guilty matrics.
"You have to understand that we were working in silence as parents of the Grade 11s and Grade 12s. I can't explain it, but it's a phenomenon of all boys' schools. It exists at KES and St John's - ask any teacher."
McLean said he and the other parents and teachers at the hostel were determined to get to the bottom of what had happened.
"It's an incredible process that's being followed by the school. You are dealing with the South African Schools Act, human rights, the constitution - you have to understand that children have the same rights to the same processes as adults in the workplace."
After further investigations on Thursday, McLean suspended all the matrics from the hostel and stripped the Druce Hall head boy of his badge.
When they return at the beginning of the second term, they will be forced to undergo a series of programmes "that show the impact of violent behaviour".
"Mr Clarke would never have tolerated this, and his management team are of the same opinion. All these stories are coming out, but not one of these parents ever furnished him with documentary proof. His frustration is that he cannot act on hearsay.
"If Pene had just allowed the process to take place, she would have seen that once we had all the information, we reacted very harshly."
For Kimber, this week's fight has been worth it.
"I'm very upset and angry. This has been very hard, very difficult, but the positive support I've received from people has outweighed the negative. I've lost count of the number of people who have supported me, but any mother would have done the same for their child."
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