One man, two schools and a six-year struggle LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF
National correspondent Steve Kilgallon reports on the making or breaking of two fledgling schools.
There are 15 weeks left in the school year. These could be the last 15 weeks two fledgling Auckland schools exist. Or not.
Alwyn Poole established the Villa Education Trust in 2002, launching Mt Hobson Middle School the following year. Then, in 2013, the trust was chosen by the National-led government to start a charter school. Decile-one South Auckland Middle School (SAMS) in Manurewa came first, followed by West Auckland Middle School in Henderson.
Since the Labour Party took power last year, charter schools have been on notice either to change or shut down.
Poole is seeking ‘‘special character’’ status for the schools to stay open. He was told in writing by Education Minister Chris Hipkins on May 15 that he should have a decision by the end of July. But he’s still waiting.
The delays leave Poole five months either to cease all operations or hire staff and recruit students for the 2019 academic year. That should be enough, according to the Ministry of Education.
It isn’t, says Poole. ‘‘We can’t advertise a place for next year, we can’t offer certainty to staff, and we’re worried for families who’ve found a niche for their child they don’t want to lose.’’ So what’s the holdup?
In order to be redesignated ‘‘special character’’, the schools must show in some specific ways that they’re different from the character of ordinary state schools.
The schools cap class sizes at 15, offer free uniforms and no fees. They cover the regular curriculum each morning, then have ‘‘activity-based’’ afternoons based around project work.
Poole says it’s clear they are very different.
According to the ministry, a ‘‘multi-disciplinary team’’ reviewed the two schools’ applications and signed off most of them. But the group wasn’t satisfied the schools’ curriculum met the special-character requirements.
Hipkins ordered an independent evaluation, which was done by the consultancy Cognition Education. It gave the schools a glowing report and recommended they be allowed to continue under the specialcharacter provisions.
The Cognition report points back to another report filed in April by a different consultant, which notes the schools are using ‘‘good and innovative practices [not usual in the state sector] . . . while still meeting high-quality standards’’.
The ministry did nothing between May 29 and July 3 to ask for extra information to help its decision, Poole says.
‘‘It would have been very easy to ask,’’ he says. ‘‘Cognition took less than two weeks to research and consult and file a comprehensive report that makes it clear that our curriculum is different to that of an ‘ordinary state school by a very significant margin’.’’
An exasperated Poole describes the ministry as ‘‘astonishingly incompetent’’.
The ministry, which would not be interviewed, said in a statement the schools could now expect a decision on their future within a fortnight.
In a letter to Adele Baller, the parent of SAMS pupil Logan Fricker, on August 14, Hipkins said the delay was due to the school not ‘‘sufficiently demonstrating’’ how its curriculum met specialcharacter status, and the need to hire Cognition.
Hipkins said he ‘‘shared your concerns about the impact this uncertainty is having on students and families’’.
Fricker turned to his mum a couple of weeks ago and said: ‘‘Mum, I just think this school is made for me.’’
‘‘It was such a wonderful way to describe the way he feels about his school,’’ she says.
But Logan knows South Auckland Middle is under threat, and keeps asking her where he will be at school next year. She can’t give him an answer yet.
Logan, who has autism, was up to three years behind National Standards when he started at SAMS this year. Although measured differently, he’s now passing seven of 11 subject areas and is very happy in school, says his mother.
‘‘I like everything about the school, there is nothing I don’t like,’’ she says. ‘‘It is very approachable and friendly, they are working really closely with us and the specialists to help him succeed. I don’t have to fight against the school system.’’
Logan is sitting attentively in a lesson about Ma¯ ori perspectives on the environment when Stuff visits. ‘‘This is the first school where he has fitted and where he feels he belongs,’’ Poole says. ‘‘At the beginning of the year he said he hated school.’’
Baller is deeply frustrated by the delay in decisions about the school’s future, because she knows it will take months for Logan to transition successfully to a new school.
She also fears that, if the school remains open, class sizes will increase and Logan will lose the individual attention that has seen his behaviour and achievement improve.
‘‘We spent months and months going around South Auckland trying to find the right place. [If SAMS closes] it doesn’t leave many other options for him,’’ she says.
She doesn’t want Logan in a bigger school where he would get lost, leaving home schooling or special schooling, neither of which are the right fit for her son. ‘‘All he ever wanted was to have a friend: it’s quite sad for an 11-year-old child to say that. But now he has got a friend.
‘‘He can walk around school and everyone high-fives him, and it’s that closeness being built up that is just unreal for a kid that had no social skills and, being honest, because he is autistic, doesn’t grow social skills very easily. He’s developed that in a school environment he doesn’t get anywhere else.’’
Baller has written twice to Hipkins, but was disappointed at his ‘‘bland’’ response. She says: ‘‘I know there is a lot of judgment about charter schools . . . but for kids like mine who have struggled in state schools, there has to be a place for them to go to have a chance of success.’’
Poole and the ministry have been arguing since the schools were established.
He says the ministry is a continual handbrake on his schools’ success. The handling of the move to special character, he says, has been ‘‘unbelievable’’.
In its written statement, the ministry’s Katrina Casey says its relationship with Villa Education is ‘‘professional and respectful’’.
Poole admits to being combative in his dealings, but says the ministry has failed him on a series of occasions dating back to when the original contracts to operate the schools were signed.
‘‘We have been quite confrontational and they probably don’t like it . . . I’ve said they need a shakeup. It is a massive bureaucracy . . . there should be some accountability.’’
When the first contract was signed, Poole says he only saw it for the first time on the day, and
‘‘I like everything about the school . . . It is very approachable and friendly, they are working really closely with us and the specialists to help him succeed.’’ Adele Baller, mother of a South Auckland Middle School pupil
was told it had to be done as the then education minister, Hekia Parata, was due to make a public announcement naming the first wave of charter schools.
The contract included a clause stipulating how many year 7 and 8 students had to be above-average for National Standards in reading, writing and maths.
Poole says his average student was some 30 months behind the average on their first day and only 35 per cent were at standard. But the contract included rising targets, with 85 per cent of year 7 and 8s expected to be above average in 2017.
‘‘At that time, Remuera Intermediate wasn’t above 75 per cent . . . that standard wasn’t being applied to state schools,’’ Poole says. He signed under dispute and was promised a full review of the clause, which he says never happened.
That’s one of six existing unresolved disputes between the ministry and Villa. The other, most serious, one relates to South Auckland’s expansion from 120 to 180 pupils: Poole says the ministry reneged on an agreement to fund the expansion, a claim it denies.
The ministry says the performance targets were initially between 50 and 62 per cent, then rising, because partnership schools had the ‘‘aim of delivering better than average outcomes’’, and notes Poole twice signed up to these contracts.
Poole says the contract also omitted any measures of older students’ attainment and the ministry, despite promising to, failed to develop any way of measuring it (they say NCEA exams were the measure).
‘‘Logically, we could take our year 9 and 10 students outside and leave them under a tree . . . and then we should take all our year 7 and 8s who are above [standard] and put them under a tree and just teach reading, writing and maths. We would meet the contract, but provide a terrible education.’’
When the Education Review Office (ERO) visited, Poole says it didn’t ask for any year 9 or 10 data because its review was focused on whether he was meeting his contract.
They didn’t meet the 75 per cent figure (but were close: 72 per cent for reading, 73 per cent for writing, 70 per cent for maths). An interim ERO report in 2014 said SAMS had ‘‘made a good start’’, but a full report in 2016 noted: ‘‘South Auckland Middle School is not yet meeting all the [contract] obligations . . . however, it has demonstrated . . . the capability to continue to improve educational outcomes for all its students.’’
The ERO noted the ministry had agreed to work on measuring progress for years 9 and 10. It also failed a standard for ‘‘student engagement’’ and student attendance.
The contract also told the schools to ensure they enrolled 75 per cent ‘‘priority learners’’ (those from Ma¯ ori, Pasifika, or low socio-economic backgrounds) but Poole says they were also told they couldn’t select their intake to meet the target (although they did). They have no school zone, offer preference only to siblings, with the remaining four-timesoversubscribed drawn by ballot at the local police station.
‘‘We have quite quickly . . . got a really good reputation as a hardworking school,’’ Poole reckons. ‘‘Our kids are absolutely thriving on structure, expectations and the opportunity to do things a bit differently.’’
One longstanding issue between Poole and teaching unions has been over the school’s funding model.
While other schools are allocated amounts tagged to budget areas such as maintenance, staff costs and sports, South Auckland is given a bulk sum and the freedom to spend as it sees fit. Because it leases its buildings and doesn’t have a gym, pool or sports fields (instead hiring public facilities), it can reassign money into slightly higher teacher salaries and to cover fees and uniform costs.
Adele Baller’s fear is the school will have to bump up class sizes if it loses bulk funding – and worries about the impact on her son Logan.
The ministry says the school will not continue to be bulk funded and has always known that. Instead, it will have to ‘‘prioritise’’’ staffing, resource and operational funding to retain its key elements.
Poole says in that case, ‘‘we would become social entrepreneurs’’ and work out how to maintain its model of smaller class sizes, free uniform, no fees, and higher salaries. ‘‘We would not charge donations. We would have to be more creative.’’