Rotorua schools call for decile review

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Five Rotorua schools are challenging the new decile ratings announced by the Government in November.

Of the 45 Rotorua district schools analysed by the Ministry of Education, 15 had their ratings reduced, while nine were increased. The rest remained the same.

Decile one schools are given more government funding, while decile 10 schools have fewer students from low socio-economic communities, so receive less funding.

The principal of one school which has challenged its new rating - Lanea Strickland of Rotorua Seventh-day Adventist School - said the jump from decile three to six didn't reflect its community.

"We're state integrated, so a lot of our students travel from outside the area [the ministry] do their data gathering from," she said. "When we looked at the area taken into consideration, we found that there was only one family living in it."

The decile ratings were calculated by using student address information, combined with Census data for small geographical areas.

Her school would receive about $7000 less each year - meaning it would have to tighten its belt on resources, Mrs Strickland said.

"Now it's just a matter of waiting and seeing what happens ..."

St Michael's Catholic School has also applied for a review. Its rating increased from decile 3 to decile four - meaning it will lose $15,000 in funding over three years.

Principal Shelly Fitness said she didn't feel the new rating reflected the school community.

"Over the past year I've seen an increase in parents coming to ask for financial help," she said.

"We've already reviewed our programmes specifically because of our loss in decile funding and we've had to cut teacher aide hours."

Fewer students were able to take part in literacy and numeracy programmes, she said.

The school wouldn't consider asking parents to make bigger donations because it knew many were struggling, she said.

"I felt the community deserved to at least have the chance of having the decile reviewed."

Bob Stiles, Rotorua Principals' Association president and Owhata Primary School principal, said it wasn't possible for all schools to win out on decile reviews. "The decile system isn't a perfect system but it's the only one we have at the moment," he said.

The review process wasn't perfect either, he said. "It's a lengthy process but if schools want to have their new decile ratings reviewed, there's no other way around it."

As of April 29, 154 schools nationwide had lodged review applications with the Ministry of Education. The ministry would not release the names of the schools but said schools would know the outcome by the end of May when the ratings would be updated on the ministry website.