Closure threat after school staff charged

Waimokoia School faces closure after a police investigation resulted in four current or former staff members being charged. Photo / Herald on Sunday

A school for some of the country's most difficult children faces possible closure after a police investigation which led to charges against four present or former staff members.

Waimokoia School, which is on a prime multi-million-dollar site in Auckland's Half Moon Bay, takes up to 44 children aged 7 to 13 from schools throughout the North Island for a one-year stay to deal with severe behavioural problems.

A police investigation has led to assault charges against three recent staff members. Two have been acquitted, and the third faces a retrial next June after a jury was unable to reach a verdict two months ago.

A fourth man has been charged in the High Court with more than 20 sexual offences dating from the 1980s. He also faces a retrial next year after a jury in July could not agree.

The school has been governed by at least three successive commissioners since early this decade and has been managed by an acting executive director since the former director, Lorraine Guthrie, left last year.

Education Minister Anne Tolley told current commissioner Dennis Finn in a letter on August 17 that the school was "not offering a balanced and quality education setting". It had been under statutory intervention for years, and "investigation shows this situation is unlikely to change".

She allowed three weeks, ending this Friday, for submissions "before I make a decision as to whether or not to close the school". The deadline has since been extended to September 11.

The Ministry of Education's deputy secretary for special education, Nicholas Pole, said the move followed a report in September last year by the Education Review Office on the country's three residential behaviour schools - Waimokoia (now 34 students), Westbridge in West Auckland (24) and McKenzie in Christchurch (29).

The ministry has refused to release the report but it is expected to be provided before September 11 to the Public Service Association, which represents 27 Waimokoia employees and has requested it under the Official Information Act.

Mr Pole said the report "highlighted significant concerns with the model of residential behaviour schools, and with practices at Waimokoia and Westbridge".

He said Waimokoia had made good progress under Mr Finn, who took over as commissioner last year and has also been commissioner of Westbridge School since 2000.

Auckland clinical psychologist Greg Woodcock, who was Waimokoia's director of programmes in 2003 and 2004, said the school was Closure threat after charges

"the most violent institution I have ever worked in".

He said up to 19 boys with chronic behavioural problems were placed in each of the two main residential cottages on the site. A third cottage was used mainly for the school's small minority of girls.

"They would riot, literally riot. It was like a mini-explosion, they would all go in every direction.

"The other thing was that, although the majority of the staff were dedicated, they were not in any way trained in the management or treatment of behaviourally disturbed children."

A 2005 Education Review Office report found that children were punished by being placed in "a small concrete block shed" with no windows. Clothing such as long-sleeved shirts was taken from them to avoid self-harm.

Twice-daily meetings were held where "all the children hear comments about all the other children, often couched in negative terms with an emphasis on compliance and control".

But the last published ERO report, in 2006, said "the more extreme isolating strategies" had been almost eliminated and there was more focus on "recognising the positive".

Auckland Primary Principals Association president Marilyn Gwilliam said other schools were worried because Waimokoia was one of very few options for the most disturbed children.

"We are not trained to deal with severe behaviour at that level in schools," she said.

"People are writing letters all around the city at the moment to try to persuade the minister to keep it open."

PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott said she was alarmed at the threat to close the school because the two remaining schools would not be enough for the numbers of behaviourally disturbed children.

Mr Finn said Westbridge School was "carrying on as normal", but Mrs Guthrie's departure from Waimokoia last year "was an opportunity that they needed to give consideration to".

* Waimokoia School

One of three residential schools for children with severe behavioural problems.

38 boys and six girls at last published review date (Nov 2006).

25 Maori, 14 Pakeha, 4 Pacific, 1 Asian student.

Students stay a year in large cottages with rostered residential staff.