KEY POINTS:
A busload of about 50 people will travel from Waverley to Wellington today in a final bid to save what appears to be their doomed local high school.
Waverley High School has been dogged by controversy, with allegations that teachers last year gave out answers to NCEA assessments and knowingly accepted plagiarised work.
For the past four years the school has also suffered a rapidly declining roll and rampant absenteeism. A number of subject areas have failed to be delivered.
The commissioner in charge of the troubled school, Dallas Murdoch, yesterday confirmed that stand-in principal Tony McIvor had been on "discretionary leave" for the past two weeks.
His contract is up for termination at the end of this term. Mr McIvor is the fourth principal to hold the position since 2005.
Ms Murdoch said the school's roll was now down to just 22 students, with 10 teachers still on the payroll. In July 2002 the student roll stood at 117.
Ms Murdoch was not aware of the number of people travelling to Wellington, and was surprised to learn that former principal Joan Manson was one of eight people meeting Education Minister Mr Maharey.
Ms Manson said the group would argue a case for salvaging the school from closure during today's scheduled half-hour meeting with Mr Maharey.
She believed the school could be saved. "What it needs is positive leadership. We've got parents and students who are going to speak [to the minister]. It's a community decision as well, it's not just the commissioner's decision."
Other people to pitch ideas to the minister would include the principals of Hawera High and Patea Area School, and the chief executive of local iwi Nga Rauru, Martin Davis.
Ms Manson said a "siege mentality" had beset the school since 2006, which had left a number of teachers stressed over the past year. As a past principal she accepted "some" responsibility for the dire situation the school was now in.
Wanganui MP Chester Borrows said the situation was "as bad as it possibly could be". "With the best will in the world it is hard to see how it will remain open."
He slammed the Ministry of Education, the Education Review Office, and the minister himself for the school's demise.
The community had been badly let down through the use of "woolly-wooftery" language which had been used in various reports over the years.
The 2005 ERO report was particularly "mealy mouthed", he said. "Then they got smacked between the eyes with the 2006 supplementary report." The community should have been informed much earlier about the declining standards at the school, " Mr Borrows said.
Thirty-nine past students from Waverley High were now being transported 40km to Wanganui City College each day. Waverley's population is about 900. Over recent years two-thirds of its primary school children have avoided going to the local high school once they hit Year 7.
Richard Gurnick, former chairman of the school's board of trustees, said he did not want to see the school close but it was a 50-50 call.
"What's happened has been brought on by themselves, they should have seen what was happening years ago. Government departments have a way of hiding things."
Last week Mr Maharey said he was "unsure" the school should remain open and asked for any arguments from staff or the commissioner in favour of the school remaining.
He said no final decision would be made until he considered all the information put before him.
