Budget 2021: Rotorua mother of five wants more support and resources for schools

More counsellors, more resources, and more support for schools and everyone in them.

These issues are at the top of one Rotorua mother-of-five's wishlist for today's Budget announcement.

She also wanted to see something done about the food prices that were now "ridiculous".

Jenna Conroy and her husband Richie have five children aged between 3 and 14.

She is a teacher aide at Glenholme School and the couple owns a small building business, RJ Conroy Ltd, where Richie works as a builder.

She said there needed to be more support for schools, from teacher aides to principals and everyone in between.

"Kids are the future."

Mum of five Jenna Conroy has education at the top of her budget wishlist. She is pictured with her children Teina-Kayde, 3 (left), Traye, 10, Keely, 14, (Jenna) Cruze, 12, and Reegan-Jayde, 6. Photo / Andrew Warner

As a teacher aide, she said while she didn't have a workload that came close to teachers', she saw first-hand how much they needed to put up with.

"There's a lot of behaviour that takes away from the learning, and such a wide variety of abilities from the ones needing lots of help, to the ones accelerating."

She said there was not a huge budget within the classroom, and many teachers forked out their own money to pay for learning supplies.

"I couldn't be a teacher, I'm just amazed by them."

She said while she was lucky their children were well supported and doing well - both in and out of school - she knew the stress that could come along with a child with high needs.

For those families, more money into classroom support and resources would be "huge".

She said some children were not well-supported at home, and if schools had more resources, time, and support, "we might have more chance of getting through to them".

Many children had schools as their safe place, she said, and there were many children in the community in emergency housing - among a wide range of other social issues.

"Even though they love coming to school, they bring their bad behaviour. But there's always a reason behind it. It's so sad."

She said school counsellors or social workers were "thin on the ground" because "there is so much going on out there," and their role was vital in bridging the home-school gap.