Grammar hires enrolment enforcer

Grammar has a roll of 2600. Picture / Martin Sykes

Auckland Grammar School has hired its own enrolments officer to act as a detective to catch families trying to get around the zoning system.

The Government requires schools such as Auckland Grammar to draw up a zone of preference rather than select applicants from anywhere.

But parents desperate to get their children into the school use tactics such as moving temporarily into the zone or renting a room within it.

Headmaster John Morris said late enrolments of students newly arrived in the zone were causing disruption to Grammar's classes and timetables.

The school is now refusing to enrol new students claiming to live within the zone after 80 applied within the past week.

Schools are legally required to accept the enrolments of any student within their area. But Mr Morris said Grammar would take no new enrolments until term two.

"The impact on your timetable and teaching is just ridiculous."

A fulltime enrolments officer will start on February 14.

Mr Morris said students who moved into the area from other parts of New Zealand or from overseas would still be accepted but they would have to prove they were permanent residents.

The enrolments officer would meet parents of prospective pupils and demand evidence of residency in the area, and even travel to view the family home to make sure they were living there, he said.

"We're sick and tired of people coming and going at their own will. We're very aware of the people that abuse the system and they're making it very difficult for us."

Mr Morris believed his decision to turn students away would be supported by other popular schools such as Avondale College, Rangitoto College, Macleans College and Epsom Girls' Grammar, who had substantial rolls and long waiting lists.

Avondale College deputy principal Fran Wynne said the school had several hundred students on its waiting list to get into Year Nine.

She said it also came down to a safety issue.

"After a certain stage, if it's impossible to get them in it's impossible to get them in."

Auckland Grammar has a roll of 2600. National education spokesman Bill English said the Government needed to look at shrinking the size of Grammar's zone to honour Labour's promise that all children could attend their local school.

A Ministry of Education spokesman said it would be looking into the issue this week.