Gloriavale’s school­ing dilemma

| The Press | Joanne Naish |

Pressreader

The com­munity’s school lost its regis­tra­tion, and par­ents failed an ERO review – so what now?

The Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion is con­sid­er­ing set­ting up a “satel­lite” of an exist­ing pub­lic school for Gloriavale chil­dren, after its unpre­ced­en­ted decision to can­cel Gloriavale Chris­tian School’s regis­tra­tion as a private school.

The min­istry said the can­cel­la­tion, as of Janu­ary 23, was neces­sary because the school was not an emo­tion­ally and phys­ic­ally safe envir­on­ment, and had failed two con­sec­ut­ive Edu­ca­tion Review Office (ERO) reviews.

The school’s board has said it will fight the decision, say­ing was “unjust” – though The Press under­stands that its only avenue is a judi­cial review.

About half of the 224 school-aged chil­dren liv­ing in the Gloriavale com­munity are already home-schooled, nearly 40% are enrolled at the Gloriavale School, and the remainder are enrolled with Te Kura cor­res­pond­ence school.

The can­cel­la­tion of a private school’s regis­tra­tion is unpre­ced­en­ted, with the min­istry unable to cite any sim­ilar decisions.

The Pacific Chris­tian School’s regis­tra­tion was sus­pen­ded in 2015 after police warned four teach­ers for their phys­ical dis­cip­lin­ary prac­tices.

Wil­li­ams said new cri­teria intro­duced in 2020 included that a school be a phys­ic­ally and emo­tion­ally safe place for stu­dents.

She said there were no aven­ues under the Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing Act for an appeal. “We can’t com­ment on other pos­sible aven­ues of appeal the school might be con­sid­er­ing.”

Wil­li­ams said the min­istry noti­fied Gloriavale Chris­tian School of the decision to can­cel its regis­tra­tion last Thursday.

“The pro­cess of work­ing through options with the com­munity has only just star­ted.”

Par­ents and fam­il­ies had a range of options they could choose from for their chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion, she said.

“The Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion will work with the fam­il­ies and other schools to ensure ongo­ing pro­vi­sion of edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren. The min­istry recog­nises that there is a strong desire from the com­munity for options that recog­nise their dis­tinct nature, and edu­cates their chil­dren together as much as pos­sible.”

Wil­li­ams said there was a range of options the min­istry was con­sid­er­ing within the state sys­tem, includ­ing pro­vi­sion at a local school, estab­lish­ing a satel­lite of another state school, a Te Kura Hub, or a com­bin­a­tion of these options. The nearest primary school to Gloriavale is Lake Brun­ner School in Moana, which has a roll of 65.

Gloriavale Leav­ers’ Sup­port Trust man­ager Liz Gregory told RNZ that all of the fam­il­ies homeschool­ing their chil­dren recently failed an ERO review. “That also is a sig­nal that home school­ing in the com­munity is clearly not [a] phys­ic­ally or emo­tion­ally safe option either.”

The Gloriavale School Board said in a state­ment to The Press it was “deeply dis­ap­poin­ted” by the min­istry’s decision.

“We believe this decision is unjust, and does not reflect the sig­ni­fic­ant efforts we have made to address con­cerns raised.

“The pos­i­tion taken by the min­istry is not accep­ted, and will be chal­lenged.”

The ERO said the school did not provide suit­able staff­ing for stu­dents with com­plex addi­tional needs, suit­able equip­ment for stu­dents with com­plex addi­tional needs, or a phys­ic­ally and emo­tion­ally safe space.

“ERO is not yet assured that all learners’ phys­ical and emo­tional health and safety is closely, reg­u­larly and suf­fi­ciently con­sidered and mon­itored across all school­ing pro­vi­sions. The incon­sist­ent applic­a­tion of some policies and pro­ced­ures poses risk to chil­dren, given a his­tory of unsafe prac­tices within the Gloriavale com­munity.”

It said the Teach­ing Coun­cil was invest­ig­at­ing an alleg­a­tion of staff mis­con­duct, and the school had been instruc­ted to form­ally mon­itor the staff mem­ber.

Last year, two teach­ers were found guilty of ser­i­ous mis­con­duct by the New Zea­l­and Teach­ers Dis­cip­lin­ary Tribunal teacher for hit­ting stu­dents with a ruler.

The tribunal said it had “great sym­pathy” for the teach­ers because they had grown up in a com­munity with dis­tor­ted atti­tudes to teach­ing and dis­cip­line. Gloriavale provided them with a “con­fined teach­ing exper­i­ence”.

In 2021, a former Gloriavale teacher pleaded guilty in the Grey­mouth Dis­trict Court to assault­ing three boys. Another teacher was jailed last year after being con­victed of sexual offend­ing against 15 girls.

The prin­cipal from 1995 to 2020 stood down after he was sus­pen­ded for ser­i­ous mis­con­duct, after he endorsed a teacher as being of “good char­ac­ter” on an applic­a­tion to renew his regis­tra­tion, des­pite know­ing that the teacher had sexu­ally abused a 9-year-old pupil.

Gloriavale’s former over­see­ing shep­herd Howard Temple was recently jailed, but released on bail pending a sen­tence appeal, for inde­cently assault­ing girls and young women.