School stand-downs rate a worry

The number of students being stood down at Southland schools is rising, and the Ministry of Education is worried.

Data from the ministry shows that the stand-down rate in Southland is much higher than the national average, and has been growing since 2014.

For 2018, Southland had a rate of 42 stand-downs per 1000 students (both primary and secondary), compared to the national average of 25.5 per 1000.

This was a large jump from 25.4 stand-downs per 1000 students in 2014, which was still higher than the national average for that year.

A stand-down involves a principal removing a student from the school for up to five days.

Ministry sector enablement and support deputy secretary Katrina Casey said it had been looking at stand-down, suspension, and exclusion data throughout all New Zealand schools and was concerned about the data for Southland during recent years.

The ministry had been discussing this with Southland principals, Casey said.

Feedback from principals was that they often used stand-downs as a ‘‘cooling-off’’ strategy, she said.

The ministry believed the use of professional development such as its Positive Behaviour for Learning Restorative Practice [PB4L] programme would help reduce stand-downs in the region.

Southland Secondary Principals’ Association chairman Jarlath Kelly said the Southland region was diverse and the reasons behind the area’s higher rates of stand-downs were complex.

School leaders would reluctantly use stand-downs for serious behaviour such as bullying, violence or substance issues, he said.

The measure should not always be seen as a negative and school leaders should not be reluctant to use it when the need arose to maintain community standards, he said.

Post Primary Teachers’ Association Southland chairman Bill Claridge said schools often wanted to have support and counselling services as options to deal with various situations but these were often underfunded.

Southland also had a higher than national average for suspensions and exclusions.

Data from Education Counts showed that 3.7 per 1000 students had been excluded in Southland in 2018, higher than the national average of 1.5 per 1000.

In contrast to a stand-down, a suspended student cannot return until the board of trustees reaches a decision. This may include exclusion, when a student is removed by the board following a suspension.

In 2018, there were 16,998 students in Southland, including primary and secondary schools.