Teachers boycott classes! Wakayama Nanryo High School, “The Heartbreaking Cries of Current Teachers”

I want the chancellor to be dragged out anyway. He is really a joke. For us, our salaries are of secondary importance. What we cannot tolerate more than anything else is that he is making the students feel uneasy. I want them to come out and explain to the students and their parents right now.

Mr. A, who teaches at Wakayama Nanryo High School, expressed his anger in this way. It all started with the nonpayment of salaries. The school’s administrator, Nanryo Gakuen, did not pay him his salary for April of this year. On May 11, all the teachers went on strike against Nanryo Gakuen, which continued to ignore repeated notices of payment. However, Nanryo Gakuen President Kazutoshi Ono ignored this as well. He has been hiding in the shadows, not showing up at meetings to explain the situation to parents and students.

Mr. A, the aforementioned teacher, described the situation on the day of the strike.

On the morning of the 11th, we were told at a staff meeting that we were going on strike. All classes that day were set aside for self-study. However, the teachers made regular rounds of the classrooms and answered any questions from the students. It was an important time before the testing period.

Parents asked, “Is it safe to transfer the June tuition and dormitory fees?” The students also asked, “Sensei, the school is going to collapse. The students also asked, “Sensei, is the school going to collapse? I want to do something about it. I want to do something about that. Most of our students live in dormitories, and even first-year students must be anxious about being away from their parents. We have to do something about it, and soon.”

The strike ended after one day. Regular classes resumed without payment. Although the decision was made out of concern for the students, some teachers said they would quit the school if the nonpayment continued. However, Mr. A says, “I will continue to work even if I don’t get paid.

The school puts a lot of effort into sports. The teachers are all advisors to the clubs, and many of the kids were scouted directly by the teachers themselves. There’s no way I could leave those kids behind and quit on my own.”

Needless to say, the responsibility lies with Chancellor Ono, the head of the school’s administration.

There have been other instances of nonpayment,” he said, “such as when the gas bill for the school was not paid and the dormitory students were unable to take a bath. The teachers drove a microbus to take the 100 or so students to a nearby bathhouse. The government is supposed to have provided 20 million yen in “school attendance support funds” to subsidize high school tuition this April, but where did that money go? ……

The most puzzling thing is that I heard from a parent that the name on the account for transferring tuition and dormitory fees is in the chancellor’s own name. Normally, they would be in the name of the school or a corporation, right?　That is why no one can grasp the flow of money,” said Mr. A.

In a letter dated May 18 addressed to the faculty members, Chancellor Ono announced his intention to pay the unpaid salaries and step down from his position as director. However, Chancellor Ono has no plans to give a direct explanation or apologize to parents or students.