Alwyn Poole's two state schools will stay fully staffed and fully operational during today's strike. Photo / File
Alwyn Poole's two state schools will stay fully staffed and fully operational during today's strike. Photo / File
Opinion
OPINION:
Alwyn Poole, founder of decile-1 South Auckland Middle School and decile-3 Middle School West Auckland, explains why his former charter schools will stay open today even though they are now state schools with special character.
Tomorrow thousands of teachers walk off the job and it looks like about 2000schools will close.
Our two State Schools will be fully staffed and fully operational - and for good reasons.
Firstly the children come to South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West Auckland on average two years behind from their previous six years of schooling. They need every minute, hour and day that we can give them.
We can show that they make approximately 1.5 years worth of growth for each year with us but this is highly dependent on consistency and using every day. We don't have teacher-only days and have the children fully engaged up to the last day of each term.
Secondly, the last thing many of their parents/caregivers need is extra cost and hours of work lost through a teacher strike. Teachers may consider that they can afford to lose a day's income - many of the school families can't.
At our schools we provide uniform, stationery, IT and do not ask for donations. This saves our families approximately $900 per child in February (and many have two or three children with us).
Eight sets of twins attend South Auckland Middle School: the school saves families $900 a year by providing each child with a free uniform, stationery and IT. Photo / File
To hit working families with costs now is counter-productive - as is hitting businesses with parents taking days off because they need to care for their children because the teachers are on strike.
Thirdly, the collective contract is completely outmoded - it does not recognise regional differences, it does not allow difficult-to-staff schools to incentivise, it does not allow schools to provide extra benefits such as health and life insurance.
With a new government this was a chance for the union/profession to modernise - not hark back to the 1950s.
Fourthly, many of the things teachers are complaining about are school management issues and not contractual.
Schools determine their class sizes. Much of the additional workload piled on teachers is through their principals and middle management through countless and needless meetings and administrative requirements to justify their own existence.
The strikes are missing the correct target and the vast majority of workload issues are not dictated by the contracts.
The strikes are about pressuring the Government through public support.
Strikes are so very last century. If schools have the support of their community then do a community sit-in after school one day and publicise that through effective social media. Don't put the kids on the street.
Only one of the 65 staff at South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West Auckland has joined a union. Photo / File
Because of the way that they operate - including their bullying approach - only one of our 65 staff have chosen to join a teacher union.
Our kids love coming to our schools (our transience and truancy levels are very low) and make great progress. Our staff turnover is also negligible and we have few problems filling any vacancies that do come up with good people.
There was/is a BETTER WAY to negotiate than harmful strikes.
