Editorial: Tough questions on new school

The new Tauranga campus principal for Academic Colleges Group, Christine Cottell-Mayhew, was in Rotorua this week. Photo / Ben Fraser

It's not surprising there's a bit of opposition to a new school setting up across the hill in Tauranga.

The new Tauranga campus principal for Academic Colleges Group, Christine Cottell-Mayhew, was in Rotorua this week to meet locals and answer questions about the school, set to open next year.

ACG, which would cater for kindergarten-age through to Year 13, clearly sees an opportunity to enrol Rotorua students.

It's not unknown for students to travel from Rotorua to Tauranga for schooling. In April we reported local principal Graham Preston as saying he recalled the days about 80 students would travel over to Bethlehem College when he worked there.

Aquinas College at Pyes Pa is even closer, as is the new ACG school.

Our April report said the school was looking at offering a daily bus service for Rotorua students.

Understandably, local schools feel threatened.

They're proud of the education they offer and are justified in questioning why parents would want to send their children out of town.

As Otonga Primary School principal Linda Woon asks, if parents aren't happy with their local school, why are they not speaking up?

If ACG ends up attracting a large number of Rotorua students, local schools will want to ask some tough questions about why.

Parents, of course, have every right to explore education options for their kids.

If what they want is not on offer on their own doorstep, who's to stop them looking further afield?

But they'd have to feel pretty strongly about it to warrant the extra daily travel, the chance of their child missing out on extra-curricular activities and the potential troubles maintaining childhood friendships from a different town.