By ALAN PERROTT
Rural schools already at risk of closure due to falling rolls are worried by a proposed policy that would cut subsidised staff housing.
The Ministry of Education manages about 2500 houses, which are rented cheaply to principals, teachers and caretakers.
A review of these properties would reduce their number to a "core housing portfolio" of 1365.
Principals and teachers at rural schools are nervous, despite ministry assurances that housing would be kept at hard-to-staff schools or where housing availability was a problem.
A Hawke's Bay principal said the ministry was putting the boot into rural schools
"My gut reaction is, 'What a bunch of cretins', said Peter Hansen, principal of Kereru School for 23 years.
"They [the ministry] just see rural schools as a convenient target to cut some overheads. They just put the boot into rural schools."
His 47-pupil primary school sits in the shadow of the Ruahine Ranges, about 45km west of the nearest shop in Hastings.
According to the proposed policy issued by the ministry, Mr Hansen should keep his remote home, but he still faces a rent increase of $45 a week, which he sees as a pay cut.
His school is already in dispute with the ministry after the closure of a nearby school five years ago.
A bus service set up to transport students from that area was stopped last year.
"With [the Government] I always feel it's the thin end of the wedge. They just keep chipping away at you all the time," said Mr Hansen.
The proposed policy is aimed at selling off surplus housing in "semi-urban" areas or towns with a "robust rental market".
Although the release of housing is not supposed to be compulsory, the ministry wants to hear good reasons from any school wanting to retain homes considered surplus.
The policy is now open to submissions from schools. If adopted, all housing will be transferred to school boards by June 30 next year.
David Bargh said it would be a disaster if his school, Dargaville High School, lost any of its 15 houses.
"It's very hard to get people to come here as it is, and people coming from overseas usually come from bigger towns and don't really want to work in a little hick town in the sticks. Being able to offer cheap housing helps a lot."
Fifteen of his teaching staff of 37 arrived from overseas within the past three years.
Mr Bargh is happy with the suggestion that school trustees administer the properties provided the rent is put back into the homes.
But that is unlikely to happen, says Stephanie Thompson, principal at Waihola School, about 30 minutes south of Dunedin.
She said trustees would have to decide whether the rent went towards books for the library or a new stove for the principal.
"And we're a martyry lot. Books will win every time."
The rent hike is her biggest worry. As a first-year principal, Mrs Thompson said her pay would effectively fall below that of a grade A teacher.
The ongoing rural cutbacks caused high emotion at the Rural and Teaching Principals Conference, held in Hamilton in March.
"If you looked at the faces of the principals I was talking to," said Mrs Thompson, "you'd see that this is a very stressful time for a lot of people."
With mice in the ceiling of her cheap home, a dehumidifier that needs to be emptied daily and her school's future under review, she said a normal, low-stress teaching position in the city became more tempting every day.
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