School's fate should soon be revealed

Hekia Parata has met school trustees and says she is confident a decision is close. Photo / John Stone

After more than four months of uncertainty, Minister of Education Hekia Parata has indicated the Whangaruru charter school's fate could be decided in weeks.

Speaking to the Northern Advocate in Whangarei, Ms Parata said she met the school's trustees last Saturday.

"I will be continuing to talk to the new trust over the next short while, over the next few weeks, because I want to be able to give them certainty, as well as the public, and I think we're close to being able to do that," she said.

The kura, recently renamed Te Pumanawa o te Wairua, was one of five charter schools to open at the start of last year. Located on a farm 65km northwest of Whangarei, the kura caters for Years 9-13 students who typically have been on the margins of the education system. In February, the kura was issued a performance notice and given 28 days to resolve issues before a ministry-commissioned audit by Deloitte.

Kura chief executive Wayne Johnstone said they had made great progress since the audit.

"Our school is stable and the issues from last year and early 2015 are almost non-existent now, our students are settled and learning is happening, we can only move forward from here," Mr Johnstone said.

He is also a trustee of the Nga Parirau Matauranga Charitable Trust which operates the school. Only two of the five original trustees remain. Two new ones, including Mr Johnstone, came on board in the last eight months.

Ms Parata said there was a process she had to follow: "My focus with this school, as with every school, is how do we give the kids the best chance to be educationally successful?"

Once a decision had been made, the audit's results would be made public.

"I've made a practice as minister that we regularly release all of the paper we have in the office and I will certainly be releasing the Deloitte report as well as the ERO report."

In a letter to the trust in February, Ms Parata found the school had not met two standards required in the contract - truancy and required roll.

About the same time as the performance review was issued, a letter from Ministry of Education's Katrina Casey to Ms Parata was released, criticising the leadership. In a restructure, curriculum director Natasha Sadler and manager/trustee Makere Laurence-Bade were made redundant.