The Municipal Social Development Corporation of Ñuñoa once again decides to choose to open its coffers to avoid, through the disbursement of money from the commune, the prolongation of judicial processes arising from lawsuits against it and reach agreements in labor courts, in cases related to former directors of the Augusto D’Halmar High School.
The school, the best municipal school in the country, had four directors in a three-month period between December 2022 and February 2023, after the historic principal Jaime Andrade was removed by administrative summary from the position he had held for 28 years.
The 2nd Labor Court of Santiago approved last Tuesday the agreement to which the Corporation, chaired by the mayor Emilia Rios (RD)arrived with Sonia Iribarren, who was one of the directors of the high school last year, who came to the position by direct decision of the municipal authorities and who, without having served six months in the position, fired herself and sued for violation of fundamental rights. , moral damages and loss of profits, among others. The agreement was for 28 million pesos.
The file, which appears on the Judicial Branch’s website, indicates that the delivery of the agreed amount is made “with the sole purpose of ending the trial and without meaning any recognition of the facts or grounds indicated in the complaint.”
These municipal monies are added to the 50 million pesos that the Corporation, in a similar agreement, arrived with Andrade himself to put an early end to the process that was opened due to the lawsuit that the former director filed, alleging the nullity of his dismissal. The agreement was approved by the 1st Labor Court of Santiago on February 1. The amount was delivered in three parts, between the 7th of that month and April 1 of this year.
He was in office for five months, with 42 days of leave, and will now receive $5.6 million per month until November.
Iribarren was contacted by the Municipal Corporation of Ñuñoa on February 8, 2023, as indicated in the complaint. Seven days later, on February 15, they called her to inform her that she had been appointed to the position and nine days later, on Friday the 24th, she was entering the Augusto D’Halmar High School as the new director. School activities began the following Monday, February 27.
According to the lawsuit, the employment relationship was extended for five months, between February 27 and July 28, 2023. Thirteen days later, on August 10 of that year, Iribarren filed the lawsuit for which now, thank you According to the agreement with the Corporation, you will receive 5.6 million pesos monthly from July to November.
During the period in which she served as director of the Augusto D’Halmar High School, Iribarren presented four licenses, which totaled 42 days, that is, almost a month and a half. This information is contained in the response to the lawsuit presented by the Corporation, and would imply that the then director came to perform her duties effectively for less than four months.
According to the defendant, the expected remuneration was 3.5 million pesos net per month. The agreement was that she would serve as an interim between March 2023 and February 2024.
The Corporation assured in court that Iribarren would work as a “substitute director” and that in any case it would be “while the investigation (against Andrade) was ongoing or until the position was filled through a Senior Public Management competition.” According to this position, neither the self-dismissal nor the compensation she demanded would be appropriate, because she worked as a contract employee, governed by a special statute.
The director also failed to present any evidence to support the alleged violation of fundamental rights. None of this was resolved by the courts, due to the agreement, involving money, reached by both parties. Iribarren’s claim was for 171 million pesos.
The details on the state of the Augusto D’Halmar High School that Iribarren exposed: “dirty and smelly” casino
What was indisputably established in the lawsuit were a series of details that Iribarren presented about the conditions in which the Augusto D’Halmar High School was at the end of February of last year, when he arrived at the institution to begin his position. .
At that time, former director Andrade had been away from management for just over two months. According to the Corporation’s own allegations, the summary resolution in which the preventive suspension of the official was ordered was issued on December 19, 2022.
«It drew the attention of the actor and her team (two people whom she was able to integrate with her) that the high school seemed like a place that had been frozen in the 80s. Its furniture was old, the rooms were small and not very warm, “The casino was small, dirty and smelly, the teachers’ room was inadequate, small, cluttered with objects, microwaves, refrigerators, fans, lockers in poor condition, etc.,” the libel states.
Iribarren assured, as stated in the file, that the two fields that the educational institution has were “without maintenance” and that “around the high school there were many fruit trees such as grapevines, quinces, apples, oranges, lemons. Which obviously brings with it a plague of mice.
When Iribarren arrived in February, they placed her in the former library because Andrade’s things were still going on in the office.
The former director also reported that that Friday, February 24, when she went to the Augusto D’Halmar High School for the first time, “they found a place for them to settle as a team (the former library), given that the former director’s office was still with his things.”
“The truth is that the complainant and her colleagues did not have the minimum conditions to function, even though the Corporation knew that the team that arrived would need a place to work and manage, also given the magnitude of the task,” the complaint states. The defendant claims that “it made a series of arrangements to ensure a safe work space” for Iribarren.
The lawsuit also states that “that day the former director appeared outside the parking lot gate, who wanted to enter and was prevented from entering by the guards.”
Iribarren was not the first person to hold the position since Andrade left. After the director was suspended, the Corporation appointed Marcela Bañados, former head of the UTP at the República de Siria school, who held the position for one day. Then Denisse Chomalí, Director of Education for the Municipality of Ñuñoa, took over the position. According to teachers, she held both positions.
After the tensions, they entrusted the direction of the school to Luis Poblete, until then inspector general, who was in the position until Iribarren’s arrival and who took it back when she fired herself and sued. Since January of this year, Pedro Castillo, who arrived through a public competition, has been in charge.
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