Grammar could take enrolment row to court

Auckland Grammar board chairman Dr Robert Kirkpatrick and headmaster John Morris with Education Minister Steve Maharey yesterday. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Auckland Grammar school is considering going to court after it was ordered to take back 20 students it ejected for breaching enrolment rules.

The school may have found a solution to future enrolment cheating woes after a meeting between headmaster John Morris, board chair Dr Robert Kirkpatrick and Minister of Education Steve Maharey yesterday.

Mr Maharey said the meeting was "productive" but it would be inappropriate to discuss it before the Grammar board had a chance to consider it.

Mr Morris said the "scenario" discussed would make things easier for the school in the future.

However, he said it had no bearing on the cases of about 50 students whose enrolments were now at issue.

The school board was considering legal action after the ministry ordered it to take back 20 of those students.

"We are still interested in pursuing judicial review of a couple of cases because we just want to make the point that you can't just whip into the zone and whip out again a few months later."

The ministry has said its legal advice on the students Grammar evicted clearly indicated an interpretation of the enrolment laws which differed from the approach taken by Grammar.

One point of difference was the definition of "temporary residence" and whether families had breached the law by moving out of the zone while their son was still at the school - an area which Grammar has taken a hard line on.

Mr Morris says the ministry's interpretation made it "open slather" for parents to use short-term residences within a school zone to enrol their children.

He said some of the 20 students had lived in the Grammar zone for only 18 months before moving to places as far afield as West Harbour, Henderson and Howick.

Opposition spokesman on education Bill English said the issue affected all schools with enrolment schemes.

He said Mr Maharey needed to explain the law to parents.

"If a student spends three or four years at a school and then moves out of zone, does the child still have a right to go to the school? Grammar says no, the ministry says yes. They're reading the same legislation but they can't both be right.

There will be thousands of families affected by that confusion."

Mr Maharey said the rules could be worked through without changing the law.

- Additional reporting Paula Oliver