Row over use of child photo led to school expulsion

THE use of a child’s photograph without her parents’ permission to publicise the school she attended led to a row which ended in her expulsion from the school.

Yesterday her father, Colin Power, said his daughter was possibly the youngest child expelled from a pre-school in Ireland.

The photograph of the three-and-a-half year old appeared in a Sunday World supplement two weeks ago without the prior approval of her parents. It was part of a newspaper advertisement publicising the work of the Early Learning Intervention School (ELIS) in Blanchardstown and advertising the opening of a new ELIS in Galway.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Liveline programme, Mr Power said his daughter was “readily identifiable” in the photograph.

“We never gave permission for our child to be in the paper and we never would give permission for her to be in the paper,” Mr Power said.

He contacted the school the day after the photograph appeared seeking an apology.

Mr Power said the apology wasn’t immediately forthcoming, but eventually when it did come, it was followed by the expulsion of his child from the school.

He said there was nowhere else to send his daughter because she has special needs and any other school they tried, which offers the same essential early learning intervention, has a waiting list.

“There are no other schools, there are virtually none for children with autism, there are a few public ones, but with 15-year waiting lists.

“Even if she got to the top of the waiting list, intervention at that point would be useless.”

Mr Power said without early intervention and appropriate schooling, his daughter would “end up in an institution”.

However, the principal of the school, Joel Noody, said there were other confidential issues around the expulsion of Mr Power’s daughter which he couldn’t discuss on the national airwaves.

“We don’t just deal with the child, we deal with the family and there are some issues that need to be ironed out,” he said.

“There are clinical issues which our clinical team has with the parents. We deal with both the child and the family, this is not a typical school, these are special kids with special needs,” he said.

He offered to meet with Mr Power to further “iron out” issues, but Mr Power said the only issue was the expulsion of his daughter from a school that she loves.

The school principal admitted they should not have used the photograph of Mr Power’s daughter without his permission, but said the newspaper article was an attempt to highlight the good work done by early learning intervention schools, which rely on parents for fundraising.

“It was to raise the profile of the school so parents could say to their local representatives ‘this is the work we do, we need you to fund it’.”