School without students

By ROB KIDD — Waikato Times

Tokoroa’s old­est primary school has a prin­cipal and two teach­ers but has not had any stu­dents since the start of the school year.

The school will not shut its doors until April 1, even though its roll stands at zero.

The future of Tokoroa East Primary School, which opened in 1915, has been in ques­tion since prin­cipal Jackie Meha and board of trust­ees chair­wo­man Ava Gardiner asked the Education Ministry last year to close the school due to a rap­idly declin­ing role.

Mrs Meha said the school’s roll had dropped to zero this year as par­ents reacted to news the school would even­tu­ally close, send­ing their chil­dren elsewhere.

However, the school offi­cially remains open until the end of the first term, with the prin­cipal and two teach­ers still employed, because of the notice required under their col­lect­ive agreement.

“Closing at the start of Term 1 would not have enabled a suf­fi­cient notice period for the prin­cipal or other staff,” the Education Ministry’s regional man­ager Linda Bendikson said.

Last week the school looked as though it was fall­ing into dis­repair. Walls had been tagged, a win­dow was smashed and two drink­ing foun­tains had been vandalised.

It was not clear what the staff have been doing for their salary this term and the Waikato Times was unable to con­tact them des­pite repeated efforts.

The tax­payer will pick up the bill for the salar­ies of the three staff which will total at least $7,500.

It will cost more than $50,000 to close down the school, with half of that attrib­uted to can­cel­la­tion of a paint­ing con­tract and a pho­to­copy lease.

In ask­ing for the clos­ure, the board also cited a down­turn in Tokoroa’s pop­u­la­tion and the school’s poor fin­an­cial per­form­ance includ­ing a $68,000 debt.

An effort by a group of par­ents com­mit­ted to keep­ing the school open in August last year ulti­mately proved unsuccessful.

Mayor Neil Sinclair said that, though he was not happy to see the school close, it was “one of those things” and reflec­ted the fall­ing child pop­u­la­tion in Tokoroa.

“We sup­por­ted the school as it tried to find a way for­ward but these things are up to the ministry.

“The school has a very long his­tory and it will be a pity to see a bit of his­tory move on.”

Local res­id­ent Barb McMullen atten­ded Tokoroa East from 1975–1978 and said, “it was prob­ably the best I went to”.

But she said in recent times it had developed a bad repu­ta­tion and she had sent her chil­dren to Tokoroa North School instead.

Mr Sinclair said the land the school was on would first be offered to the pre­vi­ous owner, then the coun­cil, before being made avail­able to the public.

He said South Waikato District Council was inter­ested in the land for either a cul­tural vil­lage or a sports centre.

“The coun­cil is invest­ig­at­ing it – it’s cer­tainly some­thing that would be advant­age­ous to the future of the council.”

Elsewhere in New Zealand, Dunedin’s Tomahawk Primary School and Waldronville School are facing near identical circumstances.

Both the schools have no chil­dren on their rolls and teach­ers who are still tech­nic­ally employed.