Resistance puts kindy changes on hold
Mums and dads revolt against allday plans and rethink is outcome
Aparents' revolt has forced a rethink of plans to turn Auckland's kindergartens into all-day centres. Pt Chevalier Kindergarten whanau chairman Stuart King said he was told yesterday that plans to hand over the kindy from January 1 to the kindergartens' subsidiary company, KiNZ, had been abandoned.
KiNZ had planned to charge $335 for a week's fulltime daycare.
Auckland Kindergarten Association (AKA) interim chief executive Pauline Winter said she was working through proposals from people bidding to review the association's strategy of extending hours at all 107 kindergartens serving 10,000 Auckland children.
Child Forum chief executive Dr Sarah Alexander said a parents' revolt at the association's annual meeting last week had saved the kindergartens from “privatisation”.
“It's an extraordinary thing that's happened,” she said. “The AKA was taking on behaviour that you would expect from a privatised organisation and moving away from the kindergarten model of free public preschool open to every family.”
More than 1300 people signed a petition against the planned changes at the Pt Chevalier kindergarten, which has a roll of 55 children.
Waitakere Kindergarten Committee chairwoman Jo Jukes, one of three parent nominees elected to the AKA board last week, said there was a full turnout of kindergartens plus a candlelight vigil by about 80 parents, teachers and supporters outside the annual meeting.
“It was just wonderful to see so many committees having stood for the sole purpose of having a voice, and it prevailed,” Jukes said.
The meeting had voted unanimously to require any further changes to gain majority approval from a steering committee in which half the members would be elected by the community and half would be AKA teachers and staff. It also agreed to hold a special meeting to put the AKA constitution on to a more democratic basis.
Auckland kindergartens have been officially free for 20 hours a week, using the Government's 20-hour free scheme. However parents have been asked to pay “donations” of $1 an hour for those 20 hours plus a $5 an hour fee after that.
Usual operating hours have been 8.30am-2.30pm, during school terms only, with parents able to enrol children for half-days or six hours.
Under the strategy adopted at the start of this year, the hours were being extended by one hour to 3.30pm. Kinder- gartens would have stayed open through the school holidays, and half-day sessions would have ended, unless there was sufficient demand.
Thirty kindergartens, mainly in low-income parts of south and west Auckland, have already been moved to the new model. But in response to parent objections in the other, wealthier parts of Auckland, the AKA board halted the changes for the other 77 kindergartens and ordered a review of the strategy in October.
Winter said the new board would await the independent review before forming a new strategy. The Pop-up Globe is back in Auckland offering a distinctly Kiwi twist on some of William Shakespeare's most-admired works.
The season opens today with the comic masterpiece A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The production, directed by Pop up Globe's artistic director and founder, Dr Miles Gregory, fuses spectacular Jacobean costumes with Maori folklore.
Te reo-speaking fairies dressed in traditional costumes wreak havoc on four lovers who have fled to the forest while a band of typical Kiwi tradies, who meet secretly to indulge their love of amateur drama, get caught up in the crossfire.
Jason Te Kare plays Oberon the fairy king and Reuben Butler is the mischievous Puck.
Following the all-male performance tradition of 1614, the Buckingham's Company is Pop-up Globe's resident team of actors and musicians, drawn from around the world.
Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The Comedy of Errors and Macbeth will be performed later in the season, which runs from now until the end of February.
The Pop-up Globe has this year moved out of the central city and been erected at Ellerslie Racecourse.
It's an extraordinary thing that's happened. Sarah Alexander