Hokitika students seeking new principal
A school in Hokitika is on a mission to find a new principal, and students have taken matters into their own hands - launching a full-scale "principal wanted" mission.
After months of searching, St Mary's Primary School has started a "principal hunt" with posters drawn up by pupils and a social media video campaign.
School board chair Christina Scott said they've had trouble finding a principal since the end of last year.
"The Catholic thing makes it a little bit difficult, because obviously our principal has to be Catholic," she said.
The primary school has been on the lookout for a new principal since last year. Photo: Development West Coast
Added to that was the teacher shortage in New Zealand, so it cut off a good 75% of eligible people, Scott said.
The campaign was the brainchild of Development West Coast, after a normal advertising search came up empty.
"As a board we thought we need to do something that's a bit more punch people in the face," Scott said.
It was a school-wide effort making the posters and video, which has already had more than 30,000 views on social media since being posted on Thursday last week.
"We only made a new job application go live on that Thursday, so there's still a couple of weeks left before it closes. We're hoping, fingers and toes crossed, that we have a good response," Scott said.
"Ideally we need someone in the role for Term 3."
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