New twist to Taihape schools saga

The long-running saga of the reorganisation of Taihape education services has taken a bizarre twist.
From the start of the new school year, on February 7, all the town's education services ? primary and secondary, State and private ? will literally be provided out of town.
For the past two years, Taihape Area School (TAS), the amalgamation of State-provided primary and secondary education has been operating from the former Taihape College site, at Rauma Rd, on Taihape's rural fringe.
Now, TAS has been joined on the same site by Taihape Catholic school, St Joseph's.
On what was, until just before Christmas, the TAS soccer field, now stands a collection of buildings resembling an old-style Ministry of Works transit camp.
The two buildings that could be shifted off St Joseph's Wren St site, form two sides of a square while a set of very basic, box-like relocatable classrooms make up the other two sides.
Contractors are going all out to install all the necessary infrastructural amenities and ready the buildings for the new term, just four weeks away.
St Joseph's trustee board member Jack Quirke yesterday acknowledged that the shift was a "panic" one prompted by a fear that the Wren St site could slip at any time.
The school sat at the "toe" of a massive ancient landslide which, until recently had given minimal cause for concern, However, Mr Quirke said midway through last year the results of a geo-technical survey of the slip zone, carried out for the Earthquake Commission, indicated the potential for slipping was greater than previously assumed.
Mr Quirke said level of risk to the school's 120 students was unacceptable so St Joseph's trustees and school community, along with the national Catholic Education Office, made the decision to get off the site as soon as possible.
But where to put the school, temporarily or permanently, became a major issue that was ultimately resolved by reaching agreement with TAS board of Trustees and the Education Ministry to become a neighbour of TAS at Rauma Rd.
Mr Quirke said St Joseph's would continue to operate as a stand-alone school and would even be fenced off from the TAS campus. The whole arrangement was designed to be temporary although how far that would stretch into the future was unknown.
Mr Quirke was unable to put a dollar value on the cost the forced move and no-one for Catholic Education Office was available yesterday to provide that information.
Having Taihape's two schools located outside the town area will mean all students will now have to be bussed to and from school every day raising other student safety issues that as yet have to be resolved.