Kawerau school stays, for now | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

Ministry comes up with new plan to take effect in 2013

Whether people will see this proposal as a merger or not will be interesting.Daryl Aim, principal Kawerau Intermediate has been given a reprieve - it won't have to close its doors at the end of the year.

However, closure for the year 7 and 8 school in its current form is still a possibility, alongside the closure of Kawerau College.

Kawerau principals met Ministry of Education representatives at the Ron Hardie Recreation Centre in Kawerau yesterday when they received news about the future of the mill town's schools following a Ministry merger proposal last year.

Kawerau Intermediate principal Daryl Aim said nine months of community consultation, community meetings and a hikoi to the steps of Parliament may have contributed to yesterday's news.

"It would appear the ministry have forgone Option C [the preferred option and] come up with an entirely new proposal," Mr Aim said. Under Option C, the intermediate was to have closed its doors at the end of this year.

"We were told there will be no changes to the status quo as far as the intermediate and college go, until 2013," he said.

"Early next year public consultation will begin on closing both the intermediate and college and opening a junior school [years 7-10] and a senior school [years 11-13] on a combined site."

Other changes to be made, which were announced at the meeting, included the approval of a Te Reo Maori Immersion School for years 1-8 on the current Kawerau North School site and retaining Kawerau South School for years 1-6 instead of years 1-8, as proposed.

Kawerau North and Kawerau Central School will be merged with Putauaki on the Putauaki site and will remain open for years 1-8, although the proposal is to drop to years 1-6 within three years.

Mr Aim said while uncertainty still remained after yesterday's meeting, it did allow intermediate staff and supporters the opportunity to take a breath. "It's been a pretty full-on nine months so now we can sit back for a few months before getting back into the community consultation again."

He said he was unsure how the community would react to the news of a junior and senior school on the same campus.

"One thing that was clear throughout this whole process was that people did not want the intermediate and college to merge.

"Whether people will see this proposal as a merger or not will be interesting, I look forward to hearing what they have to say."

Kawerau College has made headlines for the high number of self-inflicted deaths at the school and for girls fighting in uniform.

Mr Aim said he couldn't say whether the negative publicity had factored into the ministry's decision.