Schools rue $100k litigation

Mediation costs to prevent top private school from poaching sporting talent.

Atop Auckland private school has won a partial victory in a legal fight to allow new female students to play for its elite sports teams — and other schools face footing the bill.

King’s College objected to a rule drawn up by College Sport designed to prevent wealthy schools stacking their top sports teams with talent poached from other colleges and encourage fair competition between teams in premier sport.

King’s lodged High Court proceedings against College Sport in November last year after the body removed exemptions allowing King’s to bypass the “New to School” rule a month earlier. Girls new to King’s had been exempt to the restrictions because the school has only admitted girls in Years 12 and 13 since 1980.

But after King’s decided to allow Year 11 girls to enrol last year, their exemption was scrapped by College Sport.

The new to school bylaw limits schools to selecting a quota of students who have recently enrolled in premier sports teams.

The limit on new to school students was brought in because of the creation of “super teams” in schoolboy First XV rugby.

One particular case saw Saint Kentigern bring in 10 players from other schools to play rugby in 2000, including three who went on to be All Blacks — Joe Rokocoko, Jerome Kaino and John Afoa.

Students are considered new to school for two years, and the number that can be selected for each team is dependent on the sport, usually working out to be about 25 per cent of a squad. There can be six new to school students in a premier rugby team, and four for netball, hockey and football.

A compromise version of the bylaw was proposed to King’s by College Sport in December, which would designate Year 11 girls who enrol at King’s new to school for one year instead of two.

This compromise was rejected by King’s on February 14.

Prominent lawyer Mai Chen wrote a letter to College Sport in September 2016 suggesting the proposed removal of King’s exemption may be in breach of the Bill of Rights Act.

After a series of mediation meetings a compromise has been recently reached, which will see girls who enrol at King’s in Year 11 considered new to school for one year instead of the usual two.

Principals were briefed on the decision at College Sport’s AGM, but some have already expressed their disappointment with the cost of the process.

Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillault said the saga had cost College Sport more than $100,000.

“It’s a really sad and unfortunate state of affairs that we get ourselves into a situation where $100,000 needs to be spent defending litigation on who can and can’t play secondary school sport, it’s really sad.”

Couillault said the money could have been better spent on providing sport for students.

“I mean 100 grand, that’s a whole lot of kids doing things on a Wednesday afternoon or a Saturday morning . . . that they may not have had the opportunity to do otherwise.

“The whole situation is unfortunate.”

Couillault believes the cost of the mediation process to College Sport meant their operations would suffer as a result: “[It’s] ridiculous.”

Other principals spoken to by the Herald on Sunday shared Couillault’s sentiments, but refused to go on record.

College Sport chief executive Jim Lonergan would not comment on the mediation with King’s College, but said the 107 member schools pay $7.44 per student on the school’s roll to be associated with College Sport.

It’s a really sad and unfortunate state of affairs. Vaughan Couillault Papatoetoe High School principal