School backed on gang dad ban

Skip Taitapanui and his son are both hopeful they can attend a school camp together.

School camps are no places for active gang members, says New Zealand Secondary Schools Association past-president and Rotorua principal Patrick Walsh.

The John Paul College principal was commenting after our story yesterday about a Whakatane gang member who had been banned from going on his son's school camp because he was an active gang member.

Mr Walsh said gang members were not considered good role models as gangs were associated with criminal activity and violence.

James St School principal Norah Schreiber said Skip Taitapanui would not be allowed to help out with his son's future school camp as he was an active gang member. Mr Taitapanui is now making a formal complaint on his exclusion.

He said he wanted to do the best for his son and support him, having previously helped with school activities. He also wanted to make a stand for other parents in the same situation.

The story has attracted a massive response on the Rotorua Daily Post's website and Facebook page. More than 650 people have commented, some defending the father for offering to help as a volunteer, with others saying he could set the best example by leaving the gang immediately.

Mr Walsh said there had been no experience of the issue at his school and therefore they did not have a policy on it. But it had been discussed recently at principal association meetings.

The problem lay with schools generally having difficulty finding volunteers to help out on school camps, he said.

"If all volunteers were vetted by schools, it may dissuade people from putting up their hand to help," he said.

Schools vetting volunteers must weigh up the impact of any offending occurring.

"The risk of having someone with a criminal background involved in a school camp might be low but if any offence occurred it would then be extreme.

"How does the school explain to the parents of a child who may be assaulted and suffer injury after it has allowed the person to be at the camp with knowledge of their background?"

Mr Walsh said schools generally had to err of the side of caution when deciding how much risk would be involved.

Personally, he did not think parents who were gang members were good role models for children, he said.

Lynmore Primary School principal Lorraine Taylor said the school did not have a specific policy around gang members being on school camps.

The general feedback was that gang members were parents too. "They generally have their children's best interests at heart," she said.