A letter dated February 5 from Ministry of Education's Katrina Casey to Minster of Education Hekia Parata critiquing the leadership team was released on Tuesday.
"It is possible for the sponsor to avoid termination, as we consider the most significant issue facing the sponsor and preventing them from improving, is their current leadership arrangements," Ms Casey said.
The kura needed to take swift action by replacing the leadership team with suitably appropriate and experienced personnel, Ms Casey said. When contacted yesterday the ministry declined to name individuals.
On Friday Ms Parata visited Whangarei to issue the trustees with a performance notice which outlined the two standards the school had failed to meet in 2014 - truancy and number of students enrolled.
Trustees and senior management were confident of overcoming the issues as the school now had systems in place to address them, Mr Johnstone said.
"Regular student attendance is crucial at any school and is no different at Te Pumanawa O Te Wairua," he said. "Our systems are robust enough to report actual figures and of course these figures are concerning to both management and trustees."
While under the contract the kura was supposed to have a truancy rate of 2.8 per cent, last year it fluctuated between 11-17 per cent. Students not attending were followed up with daily by phone, while both students and caregivers are aware of their role in ensuring attendance at the kura, Mr Johnstone said.
The second issue of the number of students enrolled was since resolved after the Ministry of Education changed the kura's contract. It now only needs to have 40 students enrolled.
Last year the kura was funded for 71 students, despite the fact it never reached higher than about 60. This year it opened with 37 students. The school received a $1.68 million grant to set up, of which $620,000 was used to buy the 81ha property and has since received $754,280 in operating costs.
