Schools Are Struggling To Recruit New Board Members As Deadlines Loom
Just 2000 parents have applied across 10,000 soon-to-be empty school board positions.
New Zealand Rural Schools Leadership Association president Andrew King told Nine to Noon schools were getting desperate.
"I don't know that we've ever been in a year where it's been so hard in terms of actively needing to recruit," he said.
"Lots of shoulder tapping, asking current board members to stay on for another term... That's becoming more and more prevalent."
King speculated as more households were running on dual incomes, both parents felt too busy to accept a board position.
"There are huge numbers of working families where mum and dad are both having to work," he said.
"From a rural schools perspective, there's a lot of farming community people who think 'well I'm so busy at these times of the year, calving season and so forth, that I can't commit to coming to meetings and working groups so I just won't put my name forward,' too many people trying to make ends meet."
Meredith Kennett, president of NZ School Boards Association, noted schools were not alone in struggling to recruit New Zealanders.
"It is concerning and probably a mark of the times. We're not the only ones experiencing this, with the news of local body elections struggling to get nominations as well," she said.
"It might be reflective of where we're at as a society, but I do think the number will rise and traditionally it does rise in the last few days of nominations."
Andrew King also explained that parents may be unwilling to take on the responsibility of being a board member.
"Should anything go wrong at a school the board is responsible, obviously your principal is the day-to-day manager and theoretically you can have faith and trust that your principal will be putting everything in place, but a really important role of the board is governance and a big part of governance is knowing about everything that's going on.
"And just understanding everything that's going on is a big job in itself."
Social media complicated that further, Kennett said.
"The general sense of divisiveness at the moment, the worry of a person putting themselves out to stand for something publicly. It means you're risking someone having a go at you," she explained.
"Your local Facebook page might have a go at you if something happens within the school, and schools and school boards are pretty careful about what they might say publicly so therefore they might not respond to something which means you can look like you're not engaging."
Meanwhile, compensation was slim.
"It's about [$55] a meeting, and I don't think that's changed for about 20 years. In rural communities where parents might have to be driving 30 to 50 kilometres to get to the meeting each night it doesn't even cover mileage really," King said.
Kennett clarified the $55 allowance was not set in stone.
"Boards actually do have the ability to set their own payment rate. So the $55 dollars come from... If you're on a school board up to $55 is non-taxable, so that's an allowance payment for volunteering, basically," she said.
"At NZSBA we don't see it as a volunteer role... So boards can set the rates differently."
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