School on troubled list for nine years

Education Minister Anne Tolley. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A troubled Auckland school has been on the Government's intervention list for nine years, the longest of the almost 80 schools on special measures throughout the country.

Westbridge Residential School in West Auckland, a decile two school for students with learning or social difficulties, has been under a commissioner since October 2001 following serious governance and management difficulties relating to personnel, financial management and curriculum leadership.

Its last ERO report, completed last year, recommended that commissioner Dennis Finn remain in place so he could maintain progress that was taking place at the school.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said she was concerned that Westbridge had been under a commissioner for so long and had asked the Ministry of Education to look at other options for the school.

She was also working her way through the list of other schools which had been under intervention for some time to see how they were progressing and what could be done.

"I think we are coming down to some of the ones that are left now are the real hard problems to solve so they need good, long-term plans in place."

New Zealand Principals Federation president Ernie Buutveld said being under a limited statutory manager or commissioner wasn't necessarily a bad thing as it meant the school was getting help.

"It would be nice in a perfect world not to have any but the reality is with 2500 schools, perhaps 76 is not such a bad number."

In saying that, Mr Buutveld said questions had to be raised about the length of time some of the schools had been under a commissioner.

"You do have to wonder why one school has been under that regime since 2001. I mean we are talking about almost 10 years. I guess it begs the question, 'Have we got the resources, should a school need to be put under that sort of management, to effect the sort of improvement and move forward that one would like?"'

Of the 76 schools requiring help, six have been under intervention for more than four years, including the long-running intervention at Westbridge.

Statutory interventions are implemented at a struggling school following concerns about its operation or if the welfare or educational performance of students is at risk.

Common interventions include dissolving a board of trustees and appointing a commissioner to govern the school or appointing a statutory manager to work alongside the board.

This year, seven new schools have already joined the list of schools needing intervention, including Rotorua Boys High, which now has a statutory manager following complaints about several students being forced to take drug tests.

Labour Party education spokesman Trevor Mallard said he was surprised by what appears to be "quite a rapid increase in the numbers in the past year or so".

"I can't tell whether that's as a result of stress in the system but what I'm most concerned about is a number of them have been in for a very long time."

Mr Mallard said the fact that 13 schools had been under intervention for more than three years was evidence that the commissioner model was not working for some schools.

"That does bring into question the whole board model for schools which have long-term problems and there's a question as to whether we need an alternative format for them."

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION

1 school has been under a commissioner since 2001.76 are currently subject to statutory intervention.
29 have had their board of trustees dissolved and are being governed by a commissioner.
47 have a statutory manager helping the board with governance roles.
7 schools have needed intervention this year.
13 schools have been under intervention since at least 2007.