School wins bus stop battle
Tracy Lee Wilson won’t be worrying if her daughter, Maia Tamati, has been sucked under a truck at 8am anymore.
Her daughter’s decile one school has triumphed over the Ministry of Education after a year long battle for its pupils to use their original bus stop for free.
‘‘We walked down to the bus this morning and it’s the first time they got to get onto the bus at the old bus stop, they were really happy about it,’’ Wilson said.
‘‘For profit and policy, you don’t override children’s safety.’’
Maia, 12, and about 20 Hopuhopu kids used the sheltered stop in the village. The school had also been using it for almost 55 years.
It’s on a 50kmh road and free, but at the end of last year the Ministry moved them to an
unsheltered farmer’s driveway 400m away along a busy road.
Nga¯ ruawa¯ hia Primary School principal Maria Hamill, along with the kids’ parents, questioned the ministry’s common sense forcing five-years-olds to stand in the rain on Old Taupiri Rd, an open 80kmh road.
The ministry’s transport policy states children can only get a free bus to a school closest to their home. That’s Taupiri Primary School, and it’s 900m closer than Nga¯ ruawa¯ hia’s. Ultimately, Nga¯ ruawa¯ hia strangled the ministry using its strongest tool. Bureaucracy. Hamill sent the minutes from a meeting between the South Auckland Education Board and the School Committee in 1964, which stated the kids could use the bus stop for free.
‘‘I was elated,’’ Hamill said.
But the victory had strings attached. The ministry’s head of infrastructurem Kim Shannon confirmed the children could catch the bus from their original stop without paying ‘‘for the time being’’, but the ministry ‘‘had not be able to locate a record of any agreement’’ and it did ‘‘not accept the agreement to be either binding or enduring’’.
However, after a strongly worded email, the ministry accepted the minutes and said there was no intention to change the bus stop again, Hamill said.
Wilson was ‘‘rapt" her Maia and the other tamariki were back at their old spot.
‘‘We hold our kids’ safety above anything, they’re the most precious thing we have and to put them in danger like that and not care about them for a whole year was frustrating.’’
The ministry needs to apologise to the children, as they were the ones who ‘‘bore the brunt’’ of the ‘‘illogical’’ policy, she said.
‘‘If nothing had gone onto social media or into the newspaper they wouldn’t have moved, they wouldn’t have budged.’’