Cutting class
Power costs are up, water is up, gas is up, support staff salaries are set to rise – but the government is freezing schools’ operation grants this year. Principals say that is forcing them to cut spending on educating our kids. Jo Moir and Laura Dooney in
Deciding what your students will and won’t get at the start of the year is a job most principals wouldn’t wish on anybody.
As schools become more diverse, an ever-increasing number of needs have to be met – as the budget tightens the choices can end up being between whether special needs students get all the teacher aide attention they need or if that much-needed maintenance around the school gets done.
These are decisions that have long-term effects on a child’s life and every parent wants the best for their own and, unsurprisingly, every principal wants every student to leave with the best education possible.
So why are schools battling with what they can and can’t provide?
Education Minister Hekia Parata doesn’t have much sympathy for the argument that there’s ‘‘not enough cash’’. She says it’s time some principals climbed out of the 1960s and changed the way they run schools.
‘‘Everything is still operating the way it was when I went to school. It’s still 9am-3pm, three periods before lunch, two after lunch.’’
Much of the increased pressure comes on the back of a change to the way schools were funded in last year’s Budget.
While schools have traditionally received a flat 1-2 per cent increase in their operational funding (Parata points out this isn’t an entitlement, nor is it guaranteed every year) in 2016 the Government announced a shift towards targeted funding.
This meant 150,000 children were singled out as being ‘‘at-risk’’ and the schools they attend were provided extra cash to meet their needs, although principals weren’t told which students they specifically were. Parata argues schools know who they are.
While the majority of schools received targeted funding, there were some whose budget remained unchanged.
Schools are trying to make cuts come in all shapes and sizes; everything from asking parents to limit the plastic wrap in lunchboxes due to skyrocketing rubbish costs to increasing class sizes to cut back on teachers.
With everything from power and water price hikes to making allowances for a pay rise for support staff on the back of collective bargaining – there’s not a school in the country who wouldn’t say the cost of opening the doors has significantly risen.
Parata says there’s something going on in schools that has absolutely nothing to do with their socio-economic status because there’s a number of decile 1, 2 and 3 schools with disadvantaged kids that have the ‘‘same challenges and same budgets’’ as other low decile schools, yet they continuously do a better job.
Some schools are facing shortfalls of tens of thousands of dollars and in some cases it’s hundreds of thousands when other factors, such as a change in decile, are taken into consideration.
Take Naenae College in Lower Hutt – 34 per cent of its roll is made up of some of the most challenging and ‘‘at-risk’’ students.
Principal John Russell, named Senior New Zealander of the Year in 2016, first walked into the school 31 years ago as a young teacher.
He returned a decade ago when the college was put under statutory management when he decided ‘‘somebody needed to help Naenae’’.
While the school has received $20,000 through targeted funding this year – at the same time it moved from a decile 2 to a decile 3 school in 2015 – effectively losing $43,000 out of its budget.
‘‘So we’re halfway back to where we were,’’ says Russell.
‘‘You’ve got to pay for the power bill. There’s not a lot of flexibility in the system so you either do with less staff or you deal with maintenance.’’
It’s a similar story at West Harbour School in Auckland, in the heart of the city’s urban sprawl.
The school received $11,000 in targeted funding, but principal Vicki Hitchcock says she struggles to take such a small amount seriously.
‘‘It just feels like a token gesture to be honest,’’ she says. ‘‘Just because you tag something and put a label on it it’s not going to be a be-all, end-all answer and I know the ministry have said that, but it’s just absolutely inadequate.’’
Hitchcock says the school is struggling to fit the school playground with soft matting.
‘‘It feels hard when you fall,’’ says 9-year-old student David Brown. Heating the outdoor swimming pool, so students can use it for more than a few weeks a year, is a pipe dream.
The staff have tried all kinds of cost-cutting ventures, including limiting rubbish by asking parents to be mindful of what goes in their child’s Everything is still operating the way it was when I went to school. It’s still 9am3pm, three periods before lunch, two after lunch. Hekia Parata Education Minister lunchbox in the morning.
‘‘Education is not very good in having a true cost because teachers pay out of their own pocket, senior leadership relieve, I’ve just dropped kids down at a sports day because we don’t have enough cars,’’ says Anderson.
So when Parata says schools have had a 35 per cent increase in funding under a National Government, why are so many struggling to make ends meet? Is it poor financial management? Poor leadership? Or is the increase just not keeping up with the real costs?
Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins doubts those numbers are genuine because student numbers have increased so the extra cash significantly reduces.
Hipkins doesn’t doubt the funding situation is better off than perhaps some schools let on – he says it’s ‘‘static’’ at the least but it’s more likely there’s been a marginal increase.
But then you have to factor in additional costs and the changing world we now live in.
Hipkins argues the increasing technology costs aren’t being met.
Parata agrees expectations have risen and says that’s for parents, who make up the school community and are represented on a school’s board of trustees, to manage.
She says schools are still locked in a competitive mindset.
A government flagship policy, Communities of Learning, which encourage schools to share resources and expertise, is all about breaking down that competitive model.
In other words – schools need to completely change their thinking around how they pay for things.
While Hitchcock sees sharing pool costs with another school as ‘‘creative thinking’’ to make ends meet, Parata argues that’s exactly what schools should be doing under Communities of Learning.
There is also cash on the horizon as the current decile system is set to be scrapped under a review of how schools are funded.
‘‘There’s every possibility this could lead to a funding increase, but not in a way that I think schools are thinking’’ Parata says.
But even a hint of more money in the pot will be music to the ears of many principals. Situated in a wealthy pocket on the south coast of Wellington is Island Bay Primary. Principal Perry Rush says the decile 10 school received a ‘‘ridiculous’’ $2692 in targeted funding last year, which gives him ‘‘one week of a teacher aide for a needy kid’’.
The school has taken a teacher out of the classroom so it could fund a special needs coordinator.
Halswell School in Christchurch is ‘‘dipping into its reserves’’ and Hillmorton High School was relying on its international students to pay more to cover all sorts of rising costs, including health and safety compliance.
Rangitoto College in Auckland is constantly on the hunt for new local and international students to increase their roll to help with the shortfall in the budget.
And in the Waikato decile 10 and decile 1 schools were facing funding pressures.
At Te Kowhai School, north of Hamilton, the decile 10 school has a roll of 339 students.
The change to the new targeted funding scheme by the Ministry of Education meant the school received only $1200 this year.
Principal Tony Grey says the decile system greatly affects their funding.
The system doesn’t allow for any disproportionate number of medium to high needs students.
The school’s special education grant funding is $12,500, but Grey said again, this has to meet the needs of over 300 diverse learners.
‘‘We’ve always believed that, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and like all parents and schools we want the best for our students.’’
He said this year they have increased student support funding, despite the freeze. And they’ve had to trim other areas of the budget accordingly.
At the other end of the decile spectrum is Crawshaw School which serves a deprived community in Hamilton.
‘‘While some schools, including ours, received some extra targeted funding, for many schools they haven’t, or not given as much, which hasn’t made up the difference.’’
Littlewood said extra targeted funding is given to children ‘‘with criteria that are linked to disadvantages educationally’’.
‘‘We had a number of children that qualified for that extra funding. We don’t ever know which children they are, we just know that there are a certain number at the school.’’
The school’s operational funding provides money for the running of the school, such as support staff, power, water and heating.
The myth that only the poorest communities have ‘‘at-risk’’ kids has been blown wide apart and regardless of whether you’re in Island Bay in Wellington or West Harbour in West Auckland the same roadblocks are popping up.
With no extra cash coming any time soon principals will be left to either heed Parata’s advice and adapt or really broaden their ‘‘creative thinking’’ when it comes to finding things to chop.
Additional reporting by Mahvash Ali, Te Ahua Maitland, Brooke Bath and Adele Redmond.