‘Tired’ teachers question offer
A rally in Nelson has left some primary teachers undecided about the latest government offer on pay and conditions. But Kiwi kids’ education is at risk if primary school staff don’t get the collective agreement right, teachers and parents fear.
About 500 teachers and principals went on strike across Nelson city and Tasman district yesterday, staging roadside demonstrations during the morning rush hour before heading to closed meetings for NZEI union members to discuss the offer put forward a week ago.
‘‘The offer on the table really doesn’t hit or address the things that we’ve asked for – time for teachers to teach, and leaders to lead,’’ Nelson Central School teacher Tom Alesana said after a meeting at Nelson’s Trafalgar Centre.
‘‘Yes, we’ve been given special needs co-ordinators – however, that’s only 600 over 2500 work sites . . . which ultimately we have no detail of,’’ said Alesana, who sits on the NZEI national executive. ‘‘We are seeing some progress, but actually it’s not enough at the moment.’’
Alesana couldn’t say which way members would vote. ‘‘Ultimately, if the membership says that they reject the offer, the union will continue to fight, because at the end of the day . . . we’re all there to make sure we get the best for our tamariki.’’
Stoke School teacher Andrew Thompson indicated he would reject the offer. He said that while his role was to teach children when he started 33 years ago, he was now ‘‘managing’’ them as well.
‘‘There has been a deficit in resourcing primary schools over my entire career, so I’m seeing children arriving for their education who are not ready for it,’’ said Thompson, who has a class of 25 pupils aged six and seven.
‘‘If I had some more release time . . . I could organise those children a lot better, and if I had a class of 20, I could spend the time in the class teaching those children.’’
Many teachers brought in from overseas would return home, he predicted.
Leslie Smith from Waimea Intermediate School said she was concerned that the latest government offer retracted an offer for extra classroom release time. ‘‘If we don’t settle, then what actually is going to be offered to us? Are we going lose out? Are we going to go backwards?’’
Karla Biggs, who has children at St Paul’s School in Richmond, attended the Trafalgar Centre rally to support the teachers. ‘‘I’ve got three children at school, and I’m concerned that if there’s not enough teachers around, the [classroom] numbers are going to increase to a massive amount,’’ she said.
She didn’t think the Government was taking the situation seriously enough. ‘‘The teachers, if they’re worn out, they’re not there to support the children that they need to, and at the end of the day the kids miss out.’’
The Government is offering primary teachers pay rises of 3 per cent a year over three years, but with a new top step and partial removal of a cap on qualifications for some teachers from 2020.
The offer was not realistic or fair, St Joseph’s School deputy principal and year seven and eight teacher Nicola Hewitt said, at one of several roadside demonstrations across Nelson yesterday morning.
‘‘This recruitment drive that we’re having from overseas – why not plough that into our offer? Let us be really good at what we do.’’
Quality teachers would start looking elsewhere if conditions were not addressed, fellow teacher Michelle McLeod predicted, ‘‘so our teacher crisis could get a whole lot worse’’.
St Joseph’s principal Chris Gladstone said children were only still getting a good deal at school because of the ‘‘goodwill’’ of teachers. ‘‘It would be nice to have that realised with support.’’
Sonya Hockley, NZEI principal council representative for the top of the south, said the latest offer and Employment Relation Authority recommendations came too late to call off the strikes.
‘‘We’re striking because we just want our profession to be valued, we see teaching as a very important part of life and our children deserve a better system where we are funded fairly and equitably,’’ the Auckland Point School principal said.
The offer didn’t address ‘‘the day-to-day demands that are really burning teachers out’’, NZEI teachers’ co-ordinator for Nelson Stacey Ashley said ahead of the strike action.
‘‘It’s missed the most vital things, which are really addressing the workload and additional [student] needs.’’
‘‘There has been a deficit in resourcing primary schools over my entire career.’’ Andrew Thompson, Stoke School teacher