Initiative for at-risk students faces axe

A successful programme helping at-risk children at a Northland school is itself at risk.
Kamo Intermediate School's `E-Team' gets $96,000 of its funding from the school's own board of trustees, and has done so since the programme's inception in 1999.
That pays for fulltime senior teacher Julia Parry to run the unit, as well as resources and other teacher aides in the classroom. It gives about 100 children a year extra help with reading and other needs they have.
But the school can't afford to cough up the additional $50,000 needed to run the programme next year, after the Ministry of Education refused to grant the school Enhanced Programme Funding (EPF) for a seventh consecutive year.
Kamo Intermediate already runs a constant deficit to keep the programme going, and principal John Smith said he simply can't afford to deeper into debt.
The Ministry says EPF is given to projects to get off the ground, after which schools must find ways of sustaining their programmes long term.
But Mr Smith says he has no way of suddenly coming up with $50,000, as the school takes advantage of all the other Ministry grants available.
"We would lose people out of the unit, we couldn't afford it. That would mean we wouldn't be able to help as many children as we do, so ultimately it's the kids who'll miss out."
One of those children could be 12-year-old Adam Voss-Cork.
Adam's mum Adel Voss said her son has the reading level of a five-year-old, and even though he's much better at maths, his maths level is that of an eight-year-old.
"He can't keep up with the other kids in his class."
Ms Voss has been fighting since Adam was seven to get him a teacher-aide under another Ministry fund, but he doesn't qualify.
So the news of a full-time unit for special learning needs was music to the ears of Ms Voss.
Unlike many of the E-Team children, Adam is in the unit fulltime.
"But it means he can stay in school - if the E-Team wasn't there he'd be expelled by now. He gets frustrated and gets violent and lashes out."
Ms Voss said Adam liked the fact he could keep up with his class work with help from the E-Team teachers, but he missed being in a regular class with his friends.
"He's doing better than he would be in a regular class. He's making progress - it's slow, but it's progress."
Ministry of Education spokeswoman Sally Jackson said EPF was a discretionary fund, additional to other special education support.
Its guidelines stressed that the supplementary grant was to assist schools to enhance their programmes and find a way to sustain these independently of the grant.
Northland was previously eligible for a pool of money from the Auckland region, but was last year split off into its own Tai Tokerau region.
That shrunk the pool of available EPF funding to $149,000 for the coming year, and $107,000 has already been allocated to existing projects.
Kamo's E-Team helps around 100 children a year with help with behaviour or learning needs in addition to their regular classroom work. Generally the children are in the classroom for several hours a week for 10 weeks, and have an individualised learning plan which a specified teacher aide helps them achieve.
At the end of 10 weeks, they are reassessed and either stay for another programme or go back to their regular classroom.