Library used as classroom

Wellington primary seeks storage for books as Auckland school also eyes conversion

Acrowded Wellington primary school has had to convert its library into a classroom to make room for all the extra students this year. Now, it is putting out a call for a caravan or small truck to keep some library books in.

Houghton Valley School wants to keep the library books accessible to students, so is hoping to display them in a pop-up library truck once students move into the space.

Chairwoman of the school’s board of trustees, Sarah Graydon, said some of the books and library space were still accessible to children.

“The library will be a perfectly nice classroom space and there will be some access for the children to still be able to use the library. Obviously we would prefer not to be doing that but the kids in that class will still have a good learning environment in a nice classroom,” Graydon said.

She was unsure how long the children would have to remain in the library, but it would be “certainly for the rest of the year, unless someone magics us up an extra classroom . . . they don’t just turn up overnight”.

“We certainly expect it to be an issue for the next few years.”

While they still currently have enough classrooms for the children, it was inevitable that, as the year progressed, they would have to reshuffle rooms and put a class into the library, so Graydon said they would rather start the year with kids in the library than disrupt them halfway through.

She said the information the Ministry of Education had was that the increase in the roll was a “demographic bulge or blip”, and it might decrease in later years, but Graydon said it was “hard to know” if the numbers would actually decrease later.

She was not expecting the school to be given help any time soon.

“I’m certainly not holding my breath.”

The school’s home and school association has put a call out on Facebook for a caravan or small truck to keep some of the books in while the library is being used.

Principal of Balmoral School in Auckland, Malcolm Milner, said he expected he would have to put students into the library at the end of term two if nothing had been done about the overcrowding there.

Two mobile classrooms were put on the school’s field in August on temporary piles, but the school has been unable to use the rooms until the Ministry of Education organised permanent piles for them.

However, Milner received an email on January 12 stating the Ministry had been unable to get resource consent to do so, and the quote from the contractor to put the rooms on to piles was too high, so they would be trying for a lower price.

Meanwhile, one of his seven Year 5 and 6 classes had to be moved to the new entrants’ room, about 150m away from the rest of their year.

By the time more students joined later in the year, if the mobile classrooms were not ready, he would be moving students into the library.

“My job is to keep the school running as effectively as possible with the least amount of disruption,” he said. “We’ve got plans in place.”

Green Party education spokeswoman Catherine Delahunty said it was “not okay” for schools to be having to use libraries as classrooms.

“It’s certainly a symptom of the overcrowding that’s going on in schools,” she said. “The education system is bursting at the seams . . . it’s not okay for a school to have to use a library for a classroom.”

Delahunty said school libraries and books were “the backbone for kids’ learning”.

Head of sector enablement and support at the Ministry of Education, Katrina Casey, said Houghton Valley School was looking for a temporary solution to a peak in its roll later in the year, and it was expected to start declining again from next year.

“The school is exploring the idea of erecting a pop-up library on its site,” she said.