Lynmore School principal Hinei Taute. Photo / Andrew Warner
Lynmore School principal Hinei Taute. Photo / Andrew Warner
Changes to a service transporting children living in emergency housing to and from school could have a negative impact on attendance and deepen social divides, principals fear.
The Ministry of Education had been running a van service to transport the children to school since March 2021.
The vans had school liaison whānau connectors on board to help link families with social services, to support regular attendance, and to connect displaced children with a school.
The service was scaled back from seven vans to two after a bus service was introduced for children living at the 13 contracted emergency housing motels in Term 3 last year. The whānau connectors were not included in the new bus service, and would instead focus on connecting non-enrolled students with local schools.
Ministry of Education hautū Te Tai Whenua Jocelyn Mikaere said in a statement the van service was used by hundreds of students and $422,690 had been spent on it to date.
The new bus service was funded by the Ministry of Social Development and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
Mikaere said the van service remained for those who could not use the bus or were not in contracted motel accommodation.
Since Term 3, the school liaison whānau connectors had started working more to “connect non-enrolled students with local schools”, she said.
“The ministry met an urgent need to reduce the barriers for these children to attend school. When other agencies began providing additional support services, including transport, we were able to scale back our transport commitment and instead focus more on connecting non-enrolled students with local schools.”
Mikaere said regular attendance was important and linked to both “student wellbeing and attainment for more positive outcomes”.
Regional Response Funding had been secured for this year, so school liaison whānau connectors could continue the work they started in 2021, she said. At the end of last year, they were supporting students in 14 schools across Rotorua.
However, Lynmore School principal Hinei Taute said the van service was “so much more than transport” - helping to improve attendance and provide emotional stability for children in emergency housing.
She was concerned about the transport changes, describing the van service as “successful, but costly”.
”These children need a wrap-around service, rather than a bus pick-up.”
She said whānau connectors created a “helpline” between parents and schools to ensure “we were providing as much as we possibly could for the kids”.
Children also built trust with whānau connectors by seeing them daily, she said.
”If there was any vital information that the school needed to know, that information was passed over.
”They had that extra wrap-around care getting to school - making sure that they had the appropriate uniform, lunch, and gear for any sporting activities that they were engaged in.
“We were even getting them to rugby training, basketball training - all those sorts of things.”
Taute, who helped get the van service up and running, said it was crucial transport was reliable and tailored to the individual needs of children.
”It needs to be a van service where there is a face-to-face connection with someone the kids trust to get them to school.
“It is absolutely imperative we continue to do this to give some respite to children living in emergency housing,” she said.
”Many people could say that it’s the parent’s responsibility to provide this for their children, but we have got ourselves in a precarious situation right now with the way things are in our economy. The social divide is crazy.
”It’s our duty to provide equitable learning opportunities for these kids who are in situations that they can’t control.”
Rotorua Intermediate School principal Garry de Thierry. Photo / Andrew Warner
Rotorua Intermediate principal Garry de Thierry said the van service provided ongoing support for families who were experiencing “some really difficult times”.
At one stage, about 30 students had been using the van service. However, this number fluctuated depending on how many families had moved into the area.
He worried some of these children would not feel comfortable travelling to school with a busload of students, and said they needed “added support” in addition to transport.
“They’re not like most families where children are in a stable home environment. A lot of these students are dealing with a range of issues,” he said.
“They need that added support, and we need to be quite aware of the consistency of that support. It wasn’t just a case of having someone to pick up the students.”
Malfroy School principal Nicky Brell said the new bus service did not compare to the previous one.
“The drivers have been able to build a positive relationship with children, know them on a first-name basis, and are caring. However, they follow a different set of expectations with different outcomes,” he said.
“The system Hinei had developed with the whānau connectors provided a value-added service over and above the transportation of children.”
Brell said an average of 20 students at his school had made use of the vans, which helped ensure regular attendance.
He was disappointed by the changes to the service - particularly with non-attendance being identified as a national problem as a result of Covid.
“When you include the challenges whānau have encountered with emergency housing, the outcomes for children become more complex.”
He said issues were “complex” for every child and their family when personal living circumstances changed, but as long as students continued to attend school, they could “achieve successful outcomes”.
