Moerewa board sacking splits opinion

Commissioner Mike Eru appointed to run Moerewa School. Photo / APN

Teaching lobby groups have starkly different views on this week's sacking of Moerewa School's board of trustees, with one damning the Education Ministry and another showering praise.

Minister Hekia Parata sacked the board on Monday and installed commissioner Mike Eru to run the school after senior students were welcomed back for term two, despite orders to close the unit and send the students elsewhere.

Post Primary Teachers' Association president Robin Duff congratulated Mrs Parata for her firm stand, saying the school's Year 11-13 results were "seriously questionable".

"Primary schools may have the best of intentions, but it's wrong for them to believe they can adequately provide specialist subject delivery to students over Year 9."

A flaw of the Tomorrow's Schools system was that schools like Moerewa could think they were independent states and forget their responsibility to the tax-payer, Mr Duff said.

The New Zealand Principals' Federation, however, has taken the opposite tack, with vice-president Phil Harding slamming the Ministry for punishing a school which was successfully raising Maori achievement.

"The decision to sack the Board of Trustees at Moerewa School is a sad day for self-managing schools and their communities.

"Moerewa is a tiny community, working with its people to do all in its power to provide high standards of education, while also achieving success as Maori."

Moerewa School should be celebrated for its efforts and excellent ERO reports - instead it was being punished and its students excluded from their school of choice, Mr Harding said.

"Few schools would come through an NZQA audit of 84 per cent of their students' work unscathed, and the protracted process has kept these students in limbo," he said.

"The Ministry has funded the unit for three years, and it's tragic to see a positive innovation ended in this way."