Angry dad slams Masterton schools over daughter

A Masterton father who faced a rare truancy charge earlier this year claims Wairarapa schools are refusing to enrol his 16-year-old daughter.

"No schools will take her, it's pretty sad when you live in Masterton and there are four [state] secondary schools and you can't get your daughter into any of them."

The family live just metres from Makoura College, one of the colleges he says declined to accept his daughter, and he feels the Ministry of Education should have intervened.

"The ministry should have stepped in and made Makoura College take my daughter."

He said his daughter had been left with few options.

"She's just hanging around the streets I suppose.

"It'd be nice to get her into school but otherwise she'll have to go out working and it's hard, in this town, for a 16-year-old to find a job."

The girl, then 15, frequently failed to attend Kuranui College which led to her parents facing a rare charge under the Education Act. At age 16 she is no longer legally required to attend. On March 5, the charges were dropped by the college. Principal Geoff Shepherd said the school dropped the charges because it was not aware of some medical issues affecting the girl.

Late March the parents said they would be seeking legal costs from Kuranui arising from the truancy case and say they are now ready to proceed with legal action.

They are seeking about $3000 and have employed a Wellington solicitor to work on their case. The father has had to borrow money to fund the legal action.

"A lot of people say 'why don't you just give up?', why should I give up on it?"

"I was guilty of nothing and this will be proven once we get back to court," he said.

Not only was the case financially damaging to the family it took an emotional toll as well, he said.

"My wife had a breakdown ... she's had ongoing counselling since the case."

The father said he had been waiting on a copy of the school's board meeting minutes before proceeding with the case.

He claims if the school believed the matter was serious it would have been discussed in the meetings.

He also alleges his daughter had numerous visits to the school counsellor where she discussed her mental health problems and issues of self-harm and suicide.

"They haven't just come to light, these medical conditions have been ongoing for three years," he said,

The father, who has a job, said he could not physically hold his "daughter's hand" and take her to school.

"We've tried our best with this child through all her issues, we've done everything physically possible bar dragging her to school.

"Where were the truancy officers to take her to school? why didn't they do that?"

He said all he wanted from the school was an apology.

"Why don't they just apologise and admit they're wrong?"

The father has permanent name suppression to protect his daughter's identity.

Kuranui College declined to comment and efforts to reach Makoura College were unsuccessful.