High schools teachers in the Bay of Plenty will join in the national rolling strike beginning next week less than a week after teachers of all levels walked off the job during New Zealand's largest industrial action.
Last week, members of the NZ Educational Institute (NZEI) and Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) unions joined for the first time in the "mega-strike" which shut nearly 81 per cent of schools in the Bay of Plenty, affecting 55,043 students in the region.
Now PPTA members are planning rolling strikes meaning they will not teach specific year groups for one day.
Next Tuesday, the PPTA members will refuse to teach Year 9 students, the following week Year 10 students, then Year 11 students the week after and Year 12s after that.
Year 13 students won't be affected and teachers will still be paid. There are roughly 4200 Year 9s in the Bay of Plenty region, 4100 Year 10 students, 3950 Year 11s and 3500 Year 12s.
The PPTA is also planning rolling regional strikes with different regions to strike on different days. Bay of Plenty high schools will shut on June 18 for the unpaid strike.
The legal age to leave children unsupervised is 14.
The Ministry of Education's deputy secretary of early learning and student achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid said the ministry was disappointed.
"It is disappointing the PPTA are continuing with this industrial action while at the same time actively opposing all efforts to enter into facilitated bargaining through the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).
"Clearly, a settlement cannot be reached if we're not at the table and talking. The ERA will ensure negotiations are kept on track."
MacGregor-Reid said because the strike only affects one year group at a time, striking teachers would still be getting paid, schools would still be open, and parents were entitled to send their children to school "where at the least supervision should be provided".
PPTA Bay of Plenty regional chairwoman Alex Le Long said holding the strikes so soon after the mega-strike, was essential in keeping the issue at the forefront.
"For the Government to realise we are serious, we are really run down.
"We got into the job to help our students and be the best we can for them but we can't be the best we can when we're run down, stressed out, over-worked and under-paid."
Rotorua Lakes High School principal Bruce Walker said the rolling strike would send a clear message to the Government and he stood by the decision.
"The sooner it's sorted, the better."
Hopeful a conclusion was on the horizon, Rotorua Girls' High School principal Sarah Davis said teachers and students were being disadvantaged and it was important to highlight the issues education faced.
Tauranga Boys' College principal Robert Mangan said action needed to be ongoing to be effective but non-PPTA members would offer supervision if needed by parents.
Mangan said while parents may begin to show less support for the disruptions, it was an important way to show the crisis education was facing.
Otumoetai College principal Russell Gordon said he knew the continual strike would be a frustration for parents but hoped it would not be targetted at the school or teachers.
"Our staff was underwhelmed and felt undervalued by the offer put before them."
Gordon said a detailed short and long-term plan from the Government on how they planned to tackle the issue was needed to help show teachers there was a light at the end of the tunnel as morale had dwindled after previous promises had not been kept.
Aquinas College principal Matt Dalton acknowledged the disruption the rolling strikes had but said it was not something staff wanted to do.
"To have experienced what was the largest scale teaching industrial action in New Zealand's history on Wednesday demonstrates that our country's educators are united and resolute in their commitment to achieving improved pay, time and support for learning needs."
In response to yesterday's Wellbeing Budget announcement, PPTA president Jack Boyle said the government failed to address the biggest challenges in education.
The PPTA has asked the Government for an extra hour of non-classroom time, increased to six hours per week, and additional extra non-contact time for middle managers.
The Ministry of Education has offered pay rises of 3 per cent a year for three years, and an extra step at the top of the salary scales, to both the PPTA and the primary teachers' union, the NZ Educational Institute (NZEI). It said the offer would cost taxpayers $1.2 billion over four years.
But members of both unions have rejected the offer as there was no offer to relieve teachers' workloads by providing more classroom release time.
The NZEI was also unhappy with the pay offer because primary teachers' pay has fallen about 3 per cent behind secondary teachers' pay because of the timing of the two collective agreements.
The union wanted to restore "pay parity" for all teachers - a principle won through repeated strikes in the 1990s.
The schedule for year groups:
Year 9: June 4
Year 10: June 11
Year 11: June 25
Year 12: July 2
There will be no school for high school students in the Bay of Plenty on June 18.