Taradale High School teachers pick up a shovel, not a placard

Taradale High School teacher Michelle Manning and colleagues undertook a working bee at her Links Rd property during national strike action on Thursday. Photo / Warren Buckland

Hawke’s Bay’s exceptional circumstances were reflected in the way teachers took industrial action today.

Many schools sought - and were granted - exemptions against walking off the job, after a national strike was called because of the breakdown of contract negotiations between teaching unions and the government.

This region has lost a lot as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle, and there was a view among some Hawke’s Bay teachers that children needed the stability of school right now.

Others, such as four groups of teachers from Taradale High School, felt community obligations came before industrial ones.

Staff organised working bees at two properties in Waiohiki and another at Pakowhai, and other colleagues cooked and prepared meals to be delivered to residents of Dartmoor.

“We wanted to do the right thing and support the union, but we didn’t feel like standing on a picket line was the best way to do that when staff and people around here are still struggling,” high school house dean Paul Lowes said.

“So we thought ‘how about we donate our wages and come out and do this and help some of our staff and some of our kids clean up their houses’.”

Year 13 students have also been involved in the cleanup, such as at science teacher Michelle Manning’s property on Links Rd.

Manning is without a septic tank, water and whiteware and faces a mountain of work around her lifestyle property.

“You just come out and you see this mess and you get depressed and go back inside. Without the volunteers, people would be in a state where they couldn’t cope,’’ Manning said.

For Camberley Kindergarten head teacher Jess Duff, protestingwas an absolute last resort.

She and her fellow teachers in the Heretaunga Kindergarten Association taught all through Covid and have used halls, paddocks and basically anywhere they could find to keep teaching children in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.

But enough appears to be enough.

Camberley Kindergarten head teacher Jess Duff and daughter Alexis were part of today's strike action in Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland

“We’re always the ones most forgotten and we can’t keep putting children first if the Government keeps putting kindergarten teachers last,’’ Duff said.

“We are at the coalface and usually one of the first ones there for our community. During Covid we were back in kindergartens face-to-face with our whānau.

“We had no option to work from home, there’s no at-home learning when you’re a kindergarten teacher.’’

Duff was part of a large group of kindergarten teachers who took to the streets of Hastings, where they finished by delivering a list of demands - which was beautifully wrapped in a bow - to the electorate office of Tukituki MP Anna Lorck.

The fact that parents of kindy kids also joined the teachers’ march meant the world to Duff.

“The people who are closest to us value us and we just need that to be shown more widely.’’

With Parliament sitting, Lorck was in Wellington. A mother of five daughters, including one who is an early education teacher, she said she had “huge admiration’' for those in the profession.

“This Government values the important role that the teachers have in our community. There is no question that we must invest in teachers,’’ Lorck said.