Sue Nimmo attended the NZEI Te Riu Roa meeting at Whanganui Intermediate School last week and said some teachers became a little bit angry. Photo / Paul Brooks
Sue Nimmo attended the NZEI Te Riu Roa meeting at Whanganui Intermediate School last week and said some teachers became a little bit angry. Photo / Paul Brooks
There was anger at a New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa teachers meeting at Whanganui Intermediate School last week.
That is the word according to NZEI support staff national caucus chairwoman and Tawhero School teacher aide Sue Nimmo.
Teachers from across the Whanganui region gathered to cast theirvotes on whether or not to accept the recent pay offer from the Ministry of Education.
"It was a very good meeting, the local leaders that led the meeting did very well at getting the message across," Nimmo said.
"As Halim Sheridan was speaking there was anger, he was so precise, he was sharing the facts and the facts made people a little bit angry."
The votes from the meeting were sent to Wellington where they will be collated and released on Wednesday, July 4.
Last week's is the latest in a series of primary school teacher meetings which have involved discussions surrounding teacher pay, release time and workload.
"The feeling coming out of this meeting was that there are definitely a large percentage of teachers that are ready for action," Nimmo said.
"It's time for something to happen, the only way we're going to get consideration is to keep working towards what we'd like and what teachers need to carry on."
It is expected that the majority of teachers will have voted to decline the offer, which will trigger in-school action time at a proposed date of August 3.
During this time, some schools will have meetings with parents to update them on the situation and the end result could be nationwide half-day work stoppages on August 15.
If these stoppages occur, members would attend union meetings to consider any further developments or offers and schools would close for half a day.