Death knell for ‘unsafe’ school

| The Press | Joanne Naish |

Board vows to chal­lenge loom­ing clos­ure after Govt con­firms it is can­cel­ling its regis­tra­tion

Gloriavale School is to be shut down after a string of failed audits and ser­i­ous con­cerns, with the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion declar­ing it not an “emo­tion­ally and phys­ic­ally safe” envir­on­ment.

The min­istry con­firmed it was can­cel­ling Gloriavale Chris­tian School’s regis­tra­tion as a private school, as of Janu­ary 23.

The school was warned in July if it did not take “imme­di­ate and mean­ing­ful” steps to address the issues iden­ti­fied in a second failed Edu­ca­tion Review Office (ERO) audit it could face sus­pen­sion or can­cel­la­tion.

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.”

Hope­ful Dis­ciple, who worked under a lim­ited author­ity to teach at the school until he left the com­munity in 2021, said the min­istry had made the right decision.

He said chil­dren had not been safe at the school and were not get­ting the same access to edu­ca­tion as every other New Zea­l­and child. “The sys­tem in there won’t allow changes to be made. I think there’s a hard road for par­ents from here on out. I really feel for the par­ents in that situ­ation.

“Each and every par­ent needs to do what’s best for their chil­dren and the lead­ers need to look at what bound­ar­ies they can lift to empower par­ents to make their own decisions for their chil­dren,” he said.

He said options should be given to par­ents, but he acknow­ledged it would be dif­fi­cult for par­ents to home-school in Gloriavale, where work require­ments and accom­mod­a­tion space are bar­ri­ers. It would also be hard to send their chil­dren to pub­lic schools, which had been vil­i­fied by the lead­er­ship, Dis­ciple said.

Former Gloriavale res­id­ent Ser­ena Pil­grim said the school lacked aca­demic sub­jects. Sew­ing, cook­ing and child­care were avail­able to girls, while boys were taught sub­jects such as farm­ing, engin­eer­ing and car­pentry.

“It’s incred­ibly sex­ist and in no way pre­pares girls or women for the real world. It’s a shame that it has taken this long for the school to close but it’s great news that it finally has,” she said.

In August, Chil­dren’s Com­mis­sioner Claire Achmad called for the school’s urgent clos­ure, say­ing she had zero con­fid­ence that stu­dents were safe.

Ellen Mac­gregor-reid, sec­ret­ary for edu­ca­tion at the min­istry, said the reas­ons for the decision included insuf­fi­cient evid­ence provided by the school that it was con­sist­ently meet­ing all the cri­teria of a private school.

It had provided no evid­ence that it would become com­pli­ant with more time, she said.

The min­istry had provided con­sid­er­able sup­port to the board and staff over the last two years, as well as issu­ing two notices to com­ply, but there was still insuf­fi­cient evid­ence of pro­gress, she said.

“I remain con­cerned that these stu­dents are not being edu­cated within an emo­tion­ally and phys­ic­ally safe school envir­on­ment. After a period of engage­ment with the school and com­munity, and con­sid­er­a­tion of the evid­ence, I have decided that can­cel­la­tion of the school’s regis­tra­tion is neces­sary.”

Sup­port would be provided for stu­dents and fam­il­ies dur­ing the trans­ition so that edu­ca­tion was in place for term 1 next year.

It comes after the latest ERO review found the school, which cur­rently has 98 enrolled stu­dents, was not an emo­tion­ally or phys­ic­ally safe place and only met five of the eight cri­teria of a private school.

It fol­lowed a damning review in 2023 that found the school met only three of the cri­teria and the level of edu­ca­tion provided was “inad­equate and uncer­tain”.

The Gloriavale Leav­ers’ Sup­port Trust said it sup­por­ted the min­istry’s decision which had taken con­sid­er­able time, but acknow­ledged it would be unset­tling for those liv­ing in the com­munity.

“For more than six years, ser­i­ous con­cerns have been raised about the school by leav­ers, former teach­ers, and sur­vivor advoc­ates. The issues were wide-ran­ging relat­ing to gov­ernance, staff­ing num­bers and suit­ab­il­ity, and the qual­ity and safety of edu­ca­tion being provided,” man­ager Liz Gregory said.

She called for the min­istry to listen to sur­vivor advoc­ates and use a trauma-informed approach for the trans­ition to off-site school­ing.

“Ulti­mately we believe that this day will bring hope and free­dom and end­less pos­sib­il­it­ies for a brighter future.“

The min­istry con­firmed the school had been provid­ing fort­nightly pro­gress updates and meet­ing with offi­cials monthly.

The school sub­mit­ted a detailed plan in Janu­ary 2024 writ­ten with the help of an external edu­ca­tion con­sult­ant, which included that the school would employ staff and advisers from “out­side” the com­munity.

The ERO report found enrolled stu­dents with high and com­plex needs were unable to attend because of a lack of suit­able staff­ing and insuf­fi­cient equip­ment in the school to adequately sup­port their phys­ical needs.

It also said the Teach­ing Coun­cil was cur­rently invest­ig­at­ing an alleg­a­tion of staff mis­con­duct and the school told ERO the staff mem­ber was being form­ally mon­itored.

“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 pro­vi­sion,” the report said.

It said more rig­or­ous safety assess­ment plans were required for edu­ca­tion out­side the classroom and a school-based police vet­ting register was not yet in place.

Dur­ing the 2024 review, about half of the 224 school-aged chil­dren liv­ing within the Gloriavale com­munity were home-schooled and nearly 40% were enrolled at the private school with the rest enrolled in Te Kura cor­res­pond­ence.

ERO also reviewed the edu­ca­tion provided to 96 stu­dents being home-schooled in the com­munity and found most were being taught at least as well as at a registered school.