Robert Land Academy submitted the following letter to the editors of The Walrus on April 12, 2025, in response to significant factual inaccuracies and editorial mischaracterizations in its recent reporting of the closure of Robert Land Academy.
While the publication has chosen not to publish our response or correct the record, we believe it’s important that our community and the public have access to the facts.
Dear Editors at The Walrus,
We would like to voice our concerns and to clarify numerous inaccuracies in a recent article published by The Walrus titled, Exclusive: Robert Land Academy Is Closing for Good.
To begin, the article mischaracterizes the content of a letter sent by Robert Land Academy’s headmaster Peter Stock to alumni and donors on August 20, 2024. The story claims Mr. Stock stated the school was “taking the allegations seriously but that the claims didn’t represent the school presently.” In fact, the letter, which the reporter, Rachel Browne, published to her own X account at the time, clearly stated: “The safety and well-being of our students are our top priority and these alleged incidents do not reflect the values of the school, past or present.”
By choosing the word “presently” and omitting what was actually communicated in the letter, the article falsely implies that the school may have once had values consistent with the allegations. This editorial decision grossly misrepresents the Academy’s values, misinforms your readers, and unjustly shapes public perception.
In addition, the article contains a gross error in reporting enrolment data. The 44 per cent decline referenced in Robert Land Academy’s statement reflects a 10-year trend – not a single-year drop as Ms. Browne implies in her article. She wrote, “The school grew to around 125 students last year,” while also writing in another paragraph that the school experienced a significant drop in enrolment from “around ninety-five students this time last year to around sixty.” These numbers are both inaccurate and unsupported.
As the Academy has publicly stated on its website:
“Enrolment has declined by 44 percent over the past decade, driven by rising costs, the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and a significant reduction in international students — factors that together have made continued operations unsustainable. The Academy had 97 students in the 2013-2014 academic year, 54 in 2023-2024 and 55 students in the current (2024-2025).” The enrolment and retention challenges were not in any way related to the allegations. This requires honest and clear notation in your article.
These errors in reporting are more than minor oversights — they misrepresent the facts and mislead readers about the Academy’s decision to close the school. For nearly 50 years, Robert Land Academy has been an integral part of the local community, shaping over 3,000 young men into capable individuals ready to take on life’s most difficult challenges. Many of our graduates have gone on to become leaders in society, in business, education, the armed forces and various other sectors.
Robert Land Academy welcomes informed journalism and public dialogue, but we respectfully expect accurate reporting that reflects the facts. We ask that your editorial team address these inaccuracies and uphold the standards of fair and responsible reporting.
Sincerely,
Robert Land Academy’s Leadership Team
Posted: 2nd May 2025