Two parents from Hertfordshire, Rosalind Levine and Maxie Allen, have been at the center of a controversy that escalated from complaints made in a school WhatsApp group to their wrongful arrest by local police. The story began nearly two years ago in November of 2021. As recently as April 2023, Cowley Hill Primary School reported that its headteacher was retiring in June 2024. Levine and Allen have long been critical of school governance. Now, they are in the unfortunate position of raising very legitimate concerns about how parents are being treated for sharing dissenting views on social media.
In January 2024, police pulled Levine and Allen over and arrested both on the spot. Arrested for harassment, threatening malicious communications, and annoying communication on school property. Only five days before their arrest, their daughter had just begun the first day at a new school. After their arrest, Hertfordshire Police announced in March that they would not be taking action against them. The experience made both parents profoundly suspicious of police.
Levine and Allen received a £20,000 compensation payment from Hertfordshire Police for their unlawful arrest. And first and foremost, they firmly believe it’s both necessary and appropriate to discuss school challenges on informal channels like WhatsApp. Despite this compensation, they’re still dug in, immovable. They now claim that their remarks were personal and non-abusive, intended only to address legitimate concerns about the operation of the school’s governance.
Allen said, “It’s one thing to say let’s go out and catcall. It’s completely unacceptable to resort to personal and sexist language. The one thing that we did do was to weigh in on governance and policy and practices and how [the school] was led and run. You can’t shield a public authority from that scrutiny simply because it’s a school district.
Since the headteacher position was never publicly posted with an open recruitment process, Levine and Allen expressed their concerns over the school’s insular, closed recruitment process. This decision further deepened the crisis they were in. In May 2024, Allen publicly called on the school’s governors to clarify whether this was the case. In addition, their actions unnecessarily escalated scrutiny from the school administration, and later police involvement.
Both parents were met with harsh limitations for their non-stop whining. They were banned from school property and not allowed to contact teachers. Lastly, they were provided with a surveilled email account, making them even more cut off from the school community.
The impact, both personally and spiritually, of losing all of this has hit Levine and Allen hard. It has struck a chord with other parents at Cowley Hill Primary. As she pointed out in the last panel, a fellow parent named Sarah described the chilling effect these events have had on communication between parents. None of the mothers chat with each other anymore, she said. “To me, it feels like you’re back on the playground. You just get the sense that you can’t express a dissenting view without people just jumping on you.”
On July 23, 2024, Rosalind Levine letter posted to her personal Facebook page. After writing up her experience she cc-ed it to one of the county councillors and to senior officials at the local education authority. This letter drew attention not only to their individual experience but to the chilling effect on parent engagement in school decision-making.
The events surrounding Levine and Allen’s arrest have sparked discussions among parents about the excessive responses they experience when raising issues at their own schools. Since Levine went public with their story in March, they’ve received many phone calls from parents of children with disabilities. They are mutually reinforcing each other’s experiences of feeling silenced.
Reflecting on their experience, Levine expressed her ongoing distress: “Every time I see that footage of the police coming to the door, I feel sick.” She stressed that their lessons learnt must act as a warning sign. This should serve as a warning to other parents before they step into battle over what their children are taught.
Maxie Allen expressed similar concerns about the national environment around parental rights. Fargo Forum photo He explained that no governmental entity can dictate what citizens say on the platform. He highlighted the need to keep an open conversation around school policy.
Their story highlights troubling questions about the role law enforcement should play in disputes over education. Such a shift would greatly undermine the law’s laudable aim of increased parental control over school governance. Both Levine and Allen are now advocating for the Department for Education to conduct a full review of what transpired, hoping to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
As they continue to navigate the aftermath of their wrongful arrest, Levine and Allen emphasize their commitment to transparency and accountability within the educational system. Their narrative illustrates the challenges in parent-school dynamics. This is particularly the case today, as new forms of digital communication become the main arena.