Expelled for drugs at school

Rise in number of students slung out of Bay schools

The schools with the highest expulsion rates in Hawke’s Bay have been revealed, and student drug use is being blamed for spikes in the data.

The schools with the highest expulsion rates in Hawke’s Bay have been revealed, and student drug use is being blamed for spikes in the data.

Ten schools in the region expelled students between 2013-2017, according to documents released to Hawke’s Bay Today under the Official Information Act (OIA).

Napier Boys’ High School recorded 11 expulsions in 2015, the highest of any school for any of the four years of data.

Wairoa College, Te Aute College, Taradale High School, Tamatea High School, St John’s College, Lindisfarne College, Karamu High School, Hukarere College and Hastings Boys’ High School were the only other schools to expel students in the past four years. None expelled more than five in a year.

NBHS principal Matt Bertram, who was not headmaster at the time, said the 2015 expulsion rate at the school was “unusually high”. He said an incident in March that year involving drugs resulted in about seven expulsions.

The number of expulsions or stand-downs at a school was not an indication of how good or bad it was. It was a case of different leaders reacting differently to different situations that arose at school, Bertram said.

The most important thing for all principals was not to make an expulsion decision in the heat of the moment, he said.

“You are dealing with young people’s lives and futures.”

Most Hawke’s Bay school expulsions were for drug use, the OIA revealed.

Harmful or dangerous behaviour, physical assault on other students and theft and verbal assault on staff were also used as reasons for expulsion, the statistics showed.

Ministry of Education spokeswoman Katrina Casey said expulsion decisions were made by principals and boards of trustees and should only be for “the most serious cases”.

The figures also revealed in the past four years 705 Bay students were suspended from school.

More than 200 took part in illegal activity. Of those, 110 were aged 10-14 and 91 were over 15.

Taradale High School principal and Hawke’s Bay Secondary Principals’ Association chairman Stephen Hensman said the number might seem high, but it was a small minority in a region of more than 30,000 students.

“Stand-downs and suspensions exist in law because sometimes, despite using every trick in the wise teacher’s book, some students continue to disrupt learning, or engage in anti-social or dangerous behaviours,” Hensman said.

For full stand-down and suspension data from your school, visit Hawke's Bay Today's website.