Mayhem as school students flood city | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

Rotorua students let out of school while teachers held a stopwork meeting caused mayhem when they flooded into the central city, intimidating shoppers and fighting.

There were also reports of shoplifting and police sent extra staff to the central city.

Local schools closed their doors for half a day this week for teachers to hold a paid union meeting, leading to large numbers of students roaming the city streets.

Meetings across the country were organised by the PPTA (Post Primary Teachers Association) as the next step in the organisation's collective agreement campaign after a breakdown in negotiations with the Ministry of Education. The Rotorua meeting was between 1pm and 3pm on Wednesday, which saw local secondary schools send students home early.

Students converged on the city centre in large groups.

Rotorua police say they are keen to work with schools in future so they can be prepared for when they close early.

One central city retailer, who didn't want to be named, told The Daily Post about 30 youths gathered in an alleyway behind her workplace to watch two female students fight.

"They were beating ... each other," she said.

"One girl was smashing the other girl's head into the concrete."

The woman said students from Rotorua Girls' High School and Rotorua Boys' High School were watching and two boys were filming the fight on their cellphones.

When she called the police, the fight and the group watching dispersed.

"[The students] were everywhere, it was really intimidating," she said.

However, the woman said she was happy to see a strong police presence in the central city.

The Daily Post was unable to contact the principals of Rotorua Girls' High School and Rotorua Boys' High School for comment.

Rotorua police Acting Inspector Brent Crowe said police went to the central city as soon as they found out about the large gatherings of youths in town.

However, he said some schools had been proactive and had shown initiative by having teachers patrolling in the central city, monitoring students' behaviour which "greatly assisted police".

No arrests were made.

Mr Crowe said police were only made aware of the teachers meeting on the day and believed there was an opportunity for police to "liaise with schools so we have more time to prepare a response [in the future]".

City services manager Dennis Oliver said he had several local retailers approach him with concerns about the masses of youths gathering in the city centre. They were appalled at the students' behaviour, he said.

He had to tell students several times to behave themselves.

He said students were being rowdy, intimidating and disrespectful of locals shopping in town.

"It's not a good look for Rotorua."

One retailer, who didn't want to be named, said she had students hovering around the front door of the store and when she asked them to leave they began swearing at her.

The woman said it scared customers away.

Another retailer said she "would have loved some notice from schools".

"I could have rostered on more staff."

The woman said they caught a youth shoplifting and were lucky police were outside to deal with the matter straight away.

She said the behaviour of the students was "disgusting".

At Supre a staff member said they got "bombarded" with rude, obnoxious students, two of whom were caught trying to steal.