Parents fear school zone will hit property values

By DITA DE BONI

A largely Maori and Pacific Island primary school community fears its children's education will suffer and home values fall because they are excluded from a new high school's enrolment zone.

The zoning row touches on education facilities around Otara in Manukau City, one of New Zealand's poorest communities.

The school concerned - Chapel Downs Primary - is on the outskirts of Otara. Over two decades it has improved its decile rating and sent its school-leavers on to schools such as Howick Intermediate.

Now its home zone has been left out of a provisional catchment area for the new Botany Downs Secondary College, due to open in 2004.

A reshuffle of zones in the area as a result of the new school and the proposed six-lane eastern highway along Te Irirangi Drive looks set to force students out of Howick schools and back into lower decile Otara schools, including Tangaroa and Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate.

Parents at Chapel Downs, a decile 2 school (1 being the lowest socio-economic rating) with a 60 per cent Pacific Island and 20 per cent Maori roll, say up to $30,000 will be skimmed off house prices in the area because of the move.

Opening as a decile 1 school 20 years ago, Chapel Downs has seen its community change from very poor to upwardly mobile over its history, according to principal June McMillan.

An emphasis within the school on good behaviour, literacy and numeracy and the introduction of school uniforms for all students had also made the school popular with parents.

"Our students achieve to the highest levels ... we want our students to be able to go to the best schools and have the choice of where they send their children, and we want them to also have access to Botany."

Parent Michelle Palmer said: "They are taking our basic right of good schooling away from our children. Residents in our area ... have paid very good prices for their homes with children who deserve a choice of schools and at least a chance to go to a good school."

Most of each year's 100 Chapel Downs primary school leavers, representing about 27 nationalities, attend Howick Intermediate at present but will be excluded from that school also when it introduces an enrolment scheme next year.

One parent, who did not want to be named, said: "But without putting schools like Tangaroa down, parents at this end of Otara do not want to send their children there."

Parent Paul Teio said Chapel Downs had "earned the right for students to be placed at [Botany] and they must not be penalised if the perception is that they do not live in the Howick area".

But Tangaroa College principal Michael Leach defended his school, saying its history had left parents with the wrong impression and that they were welcome to visit the school to view the facilities and the courses offered.

"Our rolls have doubled in the past three years ... we are certainly giving our students a good deal here and parents can always come and have a look if they doubt that."

Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate principal Robin Staples denied students were disadvantaged by attending Otara schools.

New facilities at the collegiate, including a new library and technology block, were "equal to the best anywhere in New Zealand", he said.

Brenda Radford, manager network provision for the Ministry of Education, told the Herald that the ministry was aware Chapel Downs parents wanted access to the new Botany school - one of two of the first state secondary schools to be built in Auckland for almost 25 years - but that it was not possible because of intense growth in the Botany Downs and surrounding areas.

"The facilities are adequate at Tangaroa and [Sir Edmund] Hillary and these schools are reasonably convenient to Chapel Downs."

She said the Botany zone would not be increased because the ministry did not want the new school to be overcrowded, although it was likely another new secondary school would be built at the southern end of the East Tamaki corridor "at some point".

Longtime zoning opponent and Act education spokeswoman Donna Awatere Huata has criticised zoning for causing "ghetto" schools for Maori and Polynesian students.

"The bureaucrats should get out of Otara and leave education to families ... we have this pack of bureaucrats who push their little pens around maps and rule kids out of a fair start in life. I wish they spent just half that energy helping successful low-decile schools to expand."