Bullied girl ‘told to use back door'
Charter school says it took steps to find resolution
Aeducation charter school told a bullied girl to use the back door to avoid the bullies, the girl says.
Amber Knight, 12, said Middle School West Auckland told her to use the back door after older girls started blocking her at the front door.
“I was being treated like a downgrade of a person,” she said.
But the school said it asked Amber to use the back door after a complaint that Amber’s mother, Jamie Toia, was “intimidating and threatening” one of the girls at the front door and in the carpark.
The school in Lincoln Rd, Henderson, with 191 students, is one of two charter schools owned by Alwyn and Karen Poole’s Villa Education Trust, which together have 30 per cent of the 1218 students in the country’s 10 charter schools.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins introduced a bill this month to abolish partnership (charter) schools, giving them the options of applying to become “special character” state schools or closing. The bill is open for submissions until April 13.
Toia said she enrolled Amber in October 2016, towards the end of her Year 7 because of the 1:15 teacher/ student ratio.
Amber said she enjoyed it at first, but as “one of the only pale-coloured kids there” began to be bullied after about a month. At least 75 per cent of the school’s students are required to be Ma¯ori, Pasifika, with special education needs and/or from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
In late 2016, a girl said “she Amber Knight was going to beat me up at PE [physical education]. After my mum came in, she decided to apologise, but she still bullied other people,” Amber said.
Then, around last May, Amber said a “much taller” Year 9 student pushed her over: “It was just out of nowhere. She pushed me on top of a Year 7 girl. Me and her both got hurt. She pushed me to the ground and threatened to beat me up.”
She said she told principal Alex Metzger but he had taken no action and “shook it off”.
About two weeks later, the same girl barged her “and yet again he did nothing about it. I got really bad anxiety and depression . . . I’d hide in the toilets because I didn’t want her to sneak up on me.”
She said the bullying stopped in term three, but started again in the last term.
“Her and her friends started blocking the door and it was hard for me to get into the school. She was like blocking the hallway, pulling fingers at my mum and myself . . . I was really scared.”
She asked her mother to walk in with her.
“My mum told [ the other girl] to move,” Amber said.
But the other girl’s parents complained about Toia’s behaviour, and Toia was called in to see Metzger.
On November 26, school community liaison manager Tamzin Cook told Toia by email it was felt it would be safest to drop Amber in Soljan Drive and for her to “enter school through the technology door” rather than use the front door. Instead, Toia withdrew her from the school.
Villa Education Trust chief executive Karen Poole said the school had acted after “allegations of intimidating and threatening” behaviour by Toia towards a 13-year-old.
She said the school never received a formal complaint about Amber being bullied.
“Although in this case no formal complaint was received, we feel we took immediate and appropriate steps to discuss the issue with the parents of those involved (as well as the children) and to find a suitable resolution.”