Principals warn Education Ministry instruction on school opening hours 'not feasible'

RNZ News

8 hours ago

Principals said secondary schools would struggle to find enough days in a year to operate under the new guidelines. (File photo)
Photo:
123RF
Secondary principals warn they cannot work with new Education Ministry guidelines that set a higher bar for
deciding if schools are "open for instruction"
.
The ministry recently told schools they would not be considered "open for instruction" if only some year groups were present, or they were only providing supervision.
Secondary principals told RNZ it was a serious problem because many secondary schools had a staggered start to the school year, bringing different year groups back on different days, and most allowed their senior students to study from home during secondary school exams at the end of the year.
Secondary Principals Association Louise Anaru said if those days were not counted as "open for instruction", schools would not be able to find enough days in the year to operate.
The ministry had told schools to continue with their usual practices this year but the new interpretation would apply next year.
Asked by RNZ why the change was required it said: "While the regulations have not changed, the guidance has been developed to support consistent teaching and learning across the school system, making sure all students receive the minimum guaranteed time they are entitled to each year.
"Further guidance is being developed to provide clarity for secondary schools around end-of-year arrangements and exam-related closures."
The ministry did not say whether schools had been misinterpreting the rules and opening for too few days each year.
The rules around school opening were based on half-days - periods of two hours or more in which the school was open.
Schools had to be open for one half-day before noon and one half-day after noon each day of the school term.
Primary schools must be open for at least 382 half-days and secondaries for at least 376 half-days, and no schools could be open for more than 402 half-days.
Anaru said the ministry's guidelines would have a big impact on secondary schools.
"We have sought legal opinion on it which also concurred that it just wouldn't be possible for secondary schools to comply with these new guidelines.
"There's not enough days in the year to be open for instruction using these new guidelines and really it would just create a very confused situation for schools."
She said the association's legal advice was that the ministry's interpretation was wrong.
"The ministry's guidelines do not comply with the open for instruction requirements as part of the Education Act. It's an interpretation which is just not feasible for schools to implement," she said.
Anaru said the association had not discussed whether to take legal action.
Burnside High School principal Scott Haines said the new directive would have a huge effect on every secondary school in the country.
"The new interpretation will have a seismic impact on both how this school, Burnside High School, operates and on how I think probably just about every other secondary school in New Zealand will operate because it represents a very different position and interpretation than has been the custom and practice for as long as I've been in education, which is now 25 years."
Haines said a staggered start to the year was essential for a big school like Burnside.
Under the new rules that would have to stop, or count as days outside the normal school year - but that would mean using some of the 10 days a year that teachers could be called back to schools when they were not open for instruction.
"We're already leaning on those days with events such as parent interviews in the evenings, open evenings... so there's already a significant call on that resource. If the sense is that we need to rely more heavily on that then we're going to need more days in the collective agreement," he said.
The guidance to schools also said teachers' collective agreements required unions to work with school boards to ensure schools remained open for instruction during paid union meetings.
NZEI national secretary Stephanie Mills said its members recognised closing primary schools had a significant effect so it arranged its paid meetings accordingly.
"We don't believe the situation with paid union meetings is even relevant to that guidance that the ministry's issued about 'open for instruction'. There's no change to the legislation in terms of their rights under the Employment Relations Act to paid union meetings and so we're just going to continue with business as usual," she said.
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