Students ‘excluded’

“As the employer, the school boards make employment decisions for staffing that best fit their environment and the needs of students,” he said.

New Zealand Education Institute president Mark Potter said no child was totally resourced, and in most cases schools had to pick up all or part of the cost of supporting a child.

“The whole idea is that the system should be designed around the child, but often the child has to wrap around the system,” he said. “The system is disabling the children, because it’s not equipping the schools and the teachers with enough or the right skills, tools and support.”

One mother, who wished to remain anonymous due to her position, said she had seen both sides of the system. She has three children with autism under the age of 16 and is chair of her school’s board of trustees. Two of her children have been stood down before, both for “gross misconduct”. But she does not blame the school.

“You can see how hard the schools are working and that isn’t their fault. Schools pay extra money to bring in teacher aides, the ministry has offered no support to help my kids attend full-time.”

As chair of her board of trustees she deals with children who have been excluded from school, and said the majority are children with traumatic backgrounds or who are neurodivergent.

“These are kids that could succeed in life if they are given the right support. If they’re constantly being stood down or reprimanded for their behaviour that they can’t actually control, that’s a pretty sad situation that we are in.”

Because Walker and Short’s children are high functioning and “smart,” they do not meet the threshold for ongoing resourcing scheme (ORS) funding, which provides support for students with the highest level of need for specialist support.

They both have a single income in their households and children who desperately want to go to school but cannot. They feel their only option now is homeschooling.