Western Bay of Plenty school budgets will be carefully scrutinised in the coming weeks after the Ministry of Education rolled out its latest decile review.
In the last week schools nationwide have been receiving confirmation of the outcome of the recalculated ratings.
Kaimai School will lose a cut of its Ministry of Education funding following the latest decile ratings. Photo: File.
Decile ratings determine how much money is available to be spent at every state and state-integrated school in the country.
The last time they were reviewed was after the Census in 2006.
Brookfield School principal Robert Hyndman says the school had pinned its hopes on dropping from a decile four to three to alleviate funding pressure the school currently faces.
But the school has been informed it will remain a decile four, meaning it has to keep its belt tight in terms of funding its roll of about 212 students.
'We don't have enough funding,” says Robert. 'If we had been a three we would have got a bit more.
'Our school is under pressure budget wise to meet the needs of the children.
Robert adds under the current rating the school has a heavy dependence on external agencies to help fund vital resources in the classroom.
'Finding help or funding to support children with learning disabilities in the classroom can be really difficult,” he says.
Kaimai School principal Dane Robertson says he received a phone call last week informing him the school's decile rating would go up from seven to eight, resulting in a funding drop.
It is hoped the school can find a way to cope with the dip in finances for the school's 72 students, but Dane says this doesn't change the quality of teaching.
'For myself, and I think for most principals, all they see is money from the Ministry of Education is either more, the same, or less.
'It doesn't mean your school is better or worse.”
The Ministry of Education re-evaluates the ratings after each census, ensuring they accurately reflect the latest information on school communities.
A decile of one indicates the school draws from a poor area, while a decile of 10 confirms the opposite.
Schools that move to a lower rating will have an increase in funding, while those increasing will see a reduction over an 18-month period.
Any school which believes its rating doesn't accurately reflect the socio-economic circumstances of its students can appeal.
3 comments
rating should go
Posted on 20-11-2014 13:17 | By rotovend
so this crazy system punishes schools when their communities get ahead financially? Seems like a completely wrong attitude to encourage. There must be a better way of distributing funding than labeling schools and communities as poor or rich?
Logically...
Posted on 20-11-2014 14:31 | By morepork
...if the community surrounding the school is considered to be more affluent than they were, then they are considered to be able to contribute more. This seems pretty unfair on the schools to me. The school cannot make the community contribute and the school has no control over the generosity of the community. You could have a very wealthy community who are ungenerous. It doesn't help the school. Parents with kids at the school will probably be pressing for community projects to help raise funds but it all seems very "hit or miss". Why don't ALL schools get an equal basic grant (maybe based on number of pupils) and then extra things needed could be prioritized and applied for. This would not preclude fund-raising by the school as well. Communities need to support their schools; Education is too important to be left entirely to the Government.
But wait there's more ...
Posted on 21-11-2014 12:47 | By erinjmc
So schools with a high decile receive less money per child (funding is based on their roll return) thus they have more reliance on parent "donations" and "material" charges. Problem with the later is may not be legal - http://my.lawsociety.org.nz/news/ombudsman-says-curriculum-material-charges-unreasonable
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