Teachers and principals from the Te Puke district are joining their colleagues across the country in strike action. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Teachers and principals from Te Puke will join 50,000 of their colleagues in strike action on Thursday.
Last week, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), covering secondary and area school teachers, and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), covering primary and kindergarten teachers, made the decision to strike.
NZEI members rejected a second offer from the Ministry of Education to settle their collective agreements.
They want the Government to increase staffing and funding to schools and kindergartens so teachers can better meet the needs of children, and to improve current pay offers in order to attract and retain people in the teaching profession.
Te Puke Intermediate School principal Jill Weldon says the ministry’s second offer had “little discernable difference” from the first. She says parts of the collective agreement are archaic and society, children, expectations on teachers and teachers’ workloads have all changed.
“There are some critical pieces of [the teachers’ concerns] in terms of resourcing that they are not making any effort to address,” she says.
“Really, they seem to be focusing on pay, but even then, not at a rate of inflation.”
Jill says the other issues relate to resourcing and time for teachers to be able to teach and for leaders to lead.
The current agreement is impacting the classroom and students’ learning, she says.
“Take us as an example - at intermediate, we get staffed on one teacher to 29 kids. Twenty years ago, 29 kids, that was manageable. Now we’ve got [a roll of] 450 kids and more than half of our school is on our support register for learning, behaviour or health.”
That averages around six students in each class.
“They want [teachers] to teach literacy and numeracy, but also manage the health, the behaviour, the wellbeing, the anxiety of [students].
“Then they say, ‘Why are we not performing? And why are we not reaching the standards of literacy and numeracy that we used to?’ Well, holy hell, how can we?”
Fairhaven School teacher Trish Hunt says children’s needs are becoming more complex.
“We’ve had Covid for three years, our children’s emotional needs are way more complex and we’ve been under-resourced as a teaching profession for many, many years. But like the good old number-eight wire [mentality], we just keep going because that’s the nature of us as teachers. We just make do with what we’ve got, but we don’t want to make do now because we can see that the children that we’re trying to teach are failing because they are not getting the resources and the extra support they need in class.”
She says her classroom is really busy and it is complicated to manage behaviours and learning needs.
“At the moment, [students are] sinking below the paddling line because we are not able to meet their needs - we are one person in a room with 28 children that have lots of learning needs, so the children that don’t need all those specific acts of teaching and intervention - they miss out too because they’re not being extended.”
There is also concern teachers are leaving the profession, and it is not an attractive career.
Te Ranga School acting principal Aimee Kennedy says teaching is not a good option for school leavers.
“My friends, who are highly effective people, wouldn’t give teaching a second glance because it’s very widely known what the conditions are like and the pay we get for the conditions we put up with - it’s not a sustainable option for people.
“Highly skilled people who would make good teachers are not choosing teaching because they could get a different three-year degree and get paid, entry-level, $20,000 more - it’s not a good option for people leaving school at the moment. We need to make it an attractive option.”
“We’re not able to retain our good teachers,” says Trish. “You’re not remunerated for all the responsibility that you have and all the hours that you do - you feel like you’re failing your tamariki because you can’t do everything. You are everything to everybody, and you run out of steam.”
Teachers are also reluctant to take on leadership roles.
“When you talk to all your senior management, they have no aspirations to be a principal because of the things they see,” says Fairhaven School principal Paul Hunt.
Teachers feel there is a misconception about the number of hours they work.
“The nine-to-three job - that perception is out there until someone steps foot on school grounds, or is married to a teacher, or is invested in or connected with someone in the profession,” says Te Puke Intermediate School deputy principal Stephen Knightly.
“Then they see ... and hear about what the conditions are like, or what a day is like, and [teachers say], ‘Sorry, I’ve got paperwork to do’ at 11pm at night - that’s when people in the community start saying, ‘I’d never want to do that’.”
Paul says the profession is salaried, so however many hours teachers work, the amount they are paid doesn’t change.
On Friday, Ministry of Education employment relations and pay equity general manager Mark Williamson told the Bay of Plenty Times the offer that NZEI members had rejected so far provided “significant increases”.
“For example, teachers at the top of the scale would earn $96,820 after eight years teaching.”
He said primary teachers were also offered improvements to many of the conditions that NZEI has been looking to address.
“We set aside over $380 million so that pay parity can be maintained for all registered early learning teachers. We have sought to resume bargaining urgently to avoid disruption to our learners, their families, employers and communities.”
In terms of negotiations with the PPTA, Williamson said there were still “some outstanding issues”.
“We have now approached the Employment Relations Authority to seek facilitated bargaining urgently. We hope the PPTA has the same urgency.”