Last hurrah for Mangamaire?

shock education plan for several Tararua country communities has thrown much more at stake than the future of their schools.
For Mangamaire residents, the loss of their school would also be that of their last remaining community hub, perhaps spelling the death knell of the historic district tucked away just off State Highway 2.
It's not the first time the school structure there has faced a shake-up - in the mid-1970s Mangamaire Country School combined the rolls of the tiny Marima, Hukanui, Hamua, Konini and Nikau schools.
Today 42 children go to Mangamaire - some travelling more than 20km from the area's hilly outer reaches - making it among the largest of the eight schools threatened by the Bush Education Plan proposal.
The other schools marked to merge with Eketahuna, Pahiatua and a rebuilt Woodville School are Kumeroa-Hopelands, Mangatainoka, Hillcrest, Ballance, Papatawa and Makuri.
The most recent blow to Mangamaire came six years ago, when Eric and Jan Bird finally closed the century-old Mangamaire Store, one of the few surviving country stores in Tararua.
The store had originally doubled as a full postal agency and pumped petrol from a bowser out front, but was downgraded to a postal counter facility when Labour government reforms swept across the country in 1988 and the petrol went just over 20 years ago when BP pulled the plug.
In its heyday the community also had a farrier, butcher, several sawmills, its own rugby team and the Rexdale Cheese Factory, which closed down back in 1961.
Max Smith moved into a 34-acre lifestyle block less than a kilometre down Tutaekara Road from the school just before the shop finished up.
He has a 12-year-old boy and a 10-year-old daughter at the school, which he supports as chairman of the board.
"We've been in Mangamaire for about five generations - our family came out from Scotland in the 1890s," he said.
Mr Smith helped field a host of questions on the proposal at a meeting in the Mangamaire's new hall on Monday night.
"I don't think we got the whole community along but the consensus was that they don't want it to close. If they close the school there'll be transport problems for parents, but it's also going to further erode the local community.
"Closing the school's not going to help stimulate the population here. Would you want to move here with your kids if you saw the school was closing down?"
Even proposing the closure may have already put some prospective farming families off, he said.
Kirsty Silvester has been principal of the school for just nine months, but that's been more than enough time to show her what kind of community Mangamaire is.
"It's very close-knit. People here make such an effort to help out at the school. Some come and do lunchtime duties for us, others come in and help process the library books. The local Country Womens' Institute come in and read to the kids.
"But it's fact really that the school is a common ground. [Closures] already happened here in the 70s, but that didn't break the community up. If they close this school, this community is going to dissipate."
With no centre, locals would no longer see each other as often, she said.
"It's all going to be very divisive. Some children will go to Eketahuna, some will go to Pahiatua. Others have made a strong indication that they'd have to look at home schooling. A couple of parents work in Palmerston North and said they might take their kids to school over there."
Adding to the gloom is the potential loss of 10 jobs at the school.
"The union are coming in a couple of weeks to talk about the legal side of it - but my job is the last thing on my mind. I can find another one somewhere else, but for others it's their livelihoods, it's where their families are.
"The thought of having to shift is very worrying for them in these tight economic times. It's a big thing."
She also hates to think what would become of the school grounds if the gate was forever shut.
"I read about the vandalism of schools in Masterton that have been left to wrack and ruin. It's disempowering for a community to see that, given all the work they had put into it."
And plenty of work has been poured into Mangamaire School, which boasts an Astroturf netball court, a swimming pool that can be heated in the summer, a modern computer suite and an impressive playground.
A few years ago farmers dragged fibre optic cabling across their properties as part of the Inspired Network pilot scheme, providing the school a speedy internet connection and a first for the country.
Ms Silvester also worried how the closure could impact on the hall next door, which besides school activities hosts a playgroup, an aerobics group and the odd 21st birthday party.
Alan Bisset, a fourth-generation Mangamaire man who returned to the district on 1978 to run a small fattening farm alongside his father's property, said more than $200,000 had been spent on the building and renovations are still not complete.
The old hall's location away from the school and on the other side of the road posed safety problems, so the community rallied to relocate the former Pahiatua Rugby Club Rooms.
However he was confident the building would carry on being well utilised if the school shut. Mr Bisset, who served as school board chairman while his two children attended, is staunchly against the proposal and is making his views clear in his submission on it.
"My biggest concern is the lack of knowledge within the community on what was going on. There had been advertisements in the local paper but very generalised, saying such things as 'what do you want for your future?', 'what goals and objectives have you got for your schools?' and 'what is your vision for education in this area?' and such like.
"And of course very few people attended this meeting because they were unaware of what was really going on behind them. If they had come out and said, 'we are going to discuss schooling in this area and it may result in the closure of some primary schools', than there would have been a lot more interest.
"Also, having spoken to many people in the community since this decision has been made most people ask, 'who are these people on this committee?', and 'what experience have they got in the primary education field?', and 'how were they selected?'
"I personally know of four long-serving retired principals in this area who I would have thought would've been on the committee, or at least approached by committee members for their input - none had been.
"They announced at the end of July that these schools should be closed and have given us until the 17th of August to make submissions if we want to make changes.
"They have picked the busiest time of the year in a rural community with lambing and calving now upon us, and to do this makes me wonder if they really do want any feedback."
He also had strong reservations about reported comments by Education Minister Anne Tolley.
"To my mind, Mrs Tolley's comment that the process has been completely community driven is incorrect.
"It appears that the process has been driven by an independent facilitator acting for the Ministry of Education.
"The reaction to the possible closures that have been announced would indicate the decisions made are certainly not what the wider community want."