Two schools may appeal 'unfair' rating

Kaka Street Special School principal Barrie Wickens said the decile rating system is unfair and will mean the loss of vital funding for his school. Photo / John Borren

Two Western Bay schools are considering appealing their new decile ratings after finding out they would lose hundreds of dollars of vital funding.

This comes after the results of the nationwide shake up of decile ratings carried out after each census were released yesterday.

Pukehina School has gone up four steps from a decile rating of three to five.

Pukehina principal Roger Reid said he believed the Ministry of Education got its ranking wrong and held a community meeting last night to determine whether it would formally contest the new rating.

Mr Reid said the school stood to lose hundreds of dollars in funding, plus support from charitable organisations such as KidsCan and Duffy Books, with the new decile rating.

"I believe that we've got a good case to contest it," he said. "All around us we have wealthy farmers but we don't get any of our kids from there. If we did, we would be decile 9 or 10. All our kids come from Pukehina Parade."

Mr Reid said Pukehina Parade had plenty of large, flash homes, but these were not the homes where his students lived.

"None of our parents own their own home. A huge majority don't have a steady job or rely on income support.

"People seem to think the higher the decile rating, the better the school. People think that way but it's not true."

Mr Reid said the school's budget was already so tight that it relied on a regular set of parents and teachers to use their own vehicles to take students for school outings.

Mr Reid had also paid for a teacher out of his own pocket when the school did not have enough money and dropped students home in Te Puke each day.

Kaka Street Special School principal Barrie Wickens said the decile rating system was unfair and was also considering an appeal.

The school jumped up three steps from a 4J to a 5M in the latest review, which Mr Wickens said he did not believe reflected the situation of his students who were taught in satellite classes from Te Puke to Katikati, as well as at the Tauranga school.

"We're not happy about that. That's $4500 a year we're losing starting from next July," he said. "If you convert that into $20 an hour for a teacher aide, $500 is about a term's employment. We're going to loose money that's very critical."

Mr Wickens said the Board of Trustees chairman would discuss the possibility of appealing the decision when the whole board met early next month.

Among the biggest changes was Fairhaven School which dropped four steps on the decile rating system.

Fairhaven School principal Paul Hunt said the change from 4K to 3G would enable the school to take part in extra programmes it was not previously eligible for.