Taranaki principals rapt with early Xmas ‘windfall’
Taranaki principals agree the Government’s pledge to give state schools between $50,000 and $400,000 each is merely a drop in the bucket – but it’s a drop they’re all welcoming.
‘‘It’s a great Christmas present,’’ Shevaun O’Brien, head of Ha¯ wera Primary School, said of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement on Sunday of a one-off, $396 million cash injection for improving school property.
The grant is calculated at $693 per state school student,
With a roll of 215, O’Brien’s South Taranaki school will cash up $148,995. She said the extra funding was long-awaited.
‘‘It’s really, really exciting for us. It will give us an opportunity to achieve some things that potentially we might have had to make some compromises around,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s not enough but going to help.’’
O’Brien said the announcement was ‘‘completely out of the blue’’ and meant one of the school’s projects, to revamp its junior block, would likely be finished in a much shorter timeframe.
The funding – the largest investment in school property in it’s certainly 25 years – is available to spend immediately but schools will need to spend it within two years.
The two-year cap was a great incentive for schools to get on with work, O’Brien said.
‘‘And it makes it happen for the kids that are here now."
Westown School principal Kim Theyers praised the announcement.
‘‘I’m very surprised and very happy,’’ she said. ‘‘I think it’s a really good decision by the Government.’’
The New Plymouth school is set to receive $86,625, which Theyers said will be extremely helpful towards maintaining older buildings.
The board of trustees is yet to make exact plans for the money, but Theyers suggested it may look at improving its heating and cooling system and ‘‘fixing and replacing some of those things around the school that are getting tired and worn’’.
When asked if the promised cash was enough, Theyers laughed.
‘‘It’s definitely not enough.’’ But as it was unexpected, she dubbed it a blessing.
Fitzroy School’s acting principal Mike Pillette said, as of yesterday mid-morning, he hadn’t received ‘‘official’’ notification of the funding news.
Most schools have a to-do list waiting to be ticked and the ‘‘big windfall’’ would help move them forward a bit, he said.
However, in unanimity with his fellow principals, Pillette said for a lot of schools it will not be enough.
While Fitzroy, which has a roll of 397 and is expecting $275,121, is in pretty good shape, maintenance and repair is still an ongoing saga, as was the case for all schools.
‘‘We’re lucky because our school hasn’t been neglected, we’ve spent money on it, but other schools I know have struggled.
‘‘For some schools it’s never really enough.’’
Despite receiving the maximum of $400,000, the funding will definitely not be enough for Spotswood College, which is set to undergo a massive multimilliondollar property redevelopment.
Nicola Ngarewa, principal of the New Plymouth school, which but embraced the has 709 pupils, said the grant was a good start but with the much bigger project in the pipeline it was ‘‘just a drop in the ocean’’.
Spotswood College is awaiting word from the Government on how much funding it will receive for the rebuild of the school.
‘‘We’re really excited to see what the announcement, for our school and our community, will look like,’’ Ngarewa said. She expected it would be ‘‘sooner rather than later’’.
And on the other end of the scale, Ahititi School, with a roll of 10, is entitled to the minimum of $50,000, which principal Christine Richardson said was still pretty fantastic.
‘‘For us it will be the icing on the cake, really,’’ she said.
‘‘Ahititi is in a fortunate position. Our buildings and grounds are beautiful as we have been able to develop and maintain them to a really high standard.’’
But there’s always maintenance work that needs be done, Richardson said, echoing her peers.
With the money, the tiny school may look at adding to its play resources and enhancing what it already has, such as putting a sunshade over their playground. ‘‘It’s a little bit like winning Lotto,’’ she said.