Photo: 123RF
A Northland school has been forced to roster students home due to a winter staffing crisis.
Northland College in Kaikohe which has more than 300 students is currently about 10 teachers short, according to its website.
College tumuaki (principal) Duane Allen told Midday Report students were being rostered home over four weeks although he admitted it wasn't an ideal situation.
"So we started last week. This is our second week and we'll have two more," he said.
"We want our kids to be able to come in and engage in their learning as much as possible at the college.
"But we have to be pragmatic about health and safety and also the obligations that the board has as an employer as well. So in the past, in the first few weeks of the term, what was happening when we had high staff absence through illness was we were having to call on the goodwill of some of our staff to use the non-contact time to cover some of our classes."
The principal said the school was forced to do the same thing last year for about the same period of time, however, the difference was the school made the decision later in the term.
He said while he hasn't received any formal feedback from parents, whānau had mostly been understanding around the staffing circumstances the Te Tai Tokerau school was facing.
The staffing crisis comes on top of a recent scathing Education Review Office report.
Allen said he didn't think the report was a factor in the situation the school found itself.
"No one from board level, management level has ever shied away from the black and white reality of our data.
"However, that reality is something that extends well beyond the past sort of 12 or 24 months or even four or five years. It goes well back probably a decade or more. So we have to accept that and we don't shy away from what the data says."
ERO engagement criticised
Allen said the school had found the ERO process challenging.
"We found it difficult to have a conversation with the Education Review Office when they don't [listen] or they made it quite clear to us that they weren't here to listen to context or any of the narrative around the why things might look the way they did.
"They made it very clear that they didn't want to hear about the inputs. They had a focus on the outputs and the outputs were those data measures that they have. Northland College is located in a challenging community in many respects, a beautiful community nonetheless.
"We have an equity index number of 254. So, you know, we're kind of up there in terms of that recognition but that doesn't seem to have a place currently in the conversation with ERO or [the Education] Ministry around their perspective on where we sit," he said.
Allen said considering the elements of transience, poverty and social challenges in the community, he accepted that sending students home could exacerbate existing challenges.
"That is a question that we ask ourselves as a leadership team and a board before coming to this decision but ultimately, we need to make sure that we are looking after the health and safety of those people who are on site and if we don't have teachers to put in front of classes, that can become an issue.
"Furthermore, the board needs to and has recognised our obligations as an employer. We recognise that our staff have demonstrated incredible goodwill in terms of using some of the non-contact time that is part of the collective agreement that we work under to cover some of those classes.
"We also recognise that in doing that and asking staff to use that time that they might usually be using for planning or for marking or for following up on pastoral care for students, that we actually exacerbate the pressure that's on them."
It was not a decision the school wanted to have to make, nor was it made lightly and all of the implications had also been considered.
ERO's response
ERO visits 800 schools a year and "prioritise the things that matter most for learning and achievement", its chief review officer, Nicholas Pole said.
It was concerned about chronic absenteeism and low achievement levels at Northland College and these needed to be turned around, he said.
"ERO remains concerned that Northland College has not addressed persistent issues with student attendance, achievement, and leadership. Northland College has shown insufficient improvements for more than a decade. It is time to turn this situation around.
"The school community and its learners deserve a higher standard of educational provision. While some progress has been made, our regular monitoring indicates that shifts in learner outcomes have remained limited, and more support is needed for the school.
"We are committed to working constructively with Northland College and the Ministry of Education to turn the situation at the college around."
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