Taking the Mickey: Audit Office critical of teachers’ Disneyland visit

A tiny East Coast school sent three staff on a trip to Canada, which included a visit to Disneyland, the latest Audit Office report reveals.

The office’s annual audit of schools says Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Mangatuna, a school of 35 students north of Tolaga Bay, spent $36,200 on overseas travel in 2017.

It says “$18,077 was spent on a professional development trip to Calgary for three staff members and $18,133 on further travel through the United States, which included visiting Disneyland and other resorts”.

“The board should not use school funds for travel that does not have a clear educational purpose,” the office said.

The report also lists alleged accounting breaches at other schools including another overseas trip by Taumarunui High School, potential conflicts of interest at Auckland’s Sacred Heart College and payments made to the previous sponsor of two charter schools.

Te Kura Kaupapa Ma¯ori o Mangatuna principal Tania Hunter said her kura actually raised $67,000 from its community for the trip to Canada and Disneyland, which more than covered the $36,200 trip cost.

“My school came away with surplus money.

“It’s still in the school.”

She said she, another teacher and a kaia¯whina (helper) went to Canada to attend the 11th World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education in Toronto, and did not visit Calgary.

They presented a workshop on the use of poi in a localised indigenous curriculum.

She said the visit to Disneyland and other places in the United States came in the week before the conference, which was the last week of the July school holidays in 2017.

She felt justified in using the money raised from the community because she and the other two people who went on the trip did much of the fundraising themselves.

“We fundraise like Trojans from external funding literally all year round.”

The Audit Office said a Taumarunui high school spent $60,475 on two trips in 2017.

“The principal travelled to Europe to market the school to overseas students, and to the US to learn about Big Picture learning.

Both of these trips were consistent with the school’s strategy,” it said.

“However, the school was unable to provide sufficient evidence for $10,904 of the expenditure incurred by the principal. The amounts spent were also significantly higher than was formally approved by the board.”

“Big Picture Learning” has been described in a 2018 Qualifications Authority report as “learning tailored to individual needs”.

“Instead of traditional timetabled courses, each student is assigned an adviser who they work with to identify interests and personalise learning,” the report said.

The Audit Office report said Sacred Heart College in Glendowie had members of its board of trustees who also sat on the boards of the school’s owner, Sacred Heart College Ltd, or the Sacred Heart College Development Foundation, and that the foundation contributed to the principal’s remuneration.

“This gives rise to potential conflicts of interest,” it said.

However the college’s current board no longer includes any directors of the company or the development foundation.

The Audit Office also said it “could not obtain sufficient evidence to confirm the validity of a payment of about $467,000 for a management fee” from two former charter schools, Middle School West Auckland and South Auckland Middle School, to their sponsoring agency, Villa Education Trust.

Villa Education Trust chief executive Karen Poole said the trust worked with a facilitator appointed by the Ministry of Education throughout the process of transitioning the two charter schools to become special-character state schools from January 2019.