David Unwin/Stuff
Freyberg High School principal Peter Brooks says once a student has been suspended or excluded, alternative education is the best option.
A Manawatū school is defending its right to not enrol children who have been suspended or excluded from other schools.
Stuff received an anonymous complaint about Freyberg High School in Palmerston North refusing to enrol children who lived in the school zone and the school was doing nothing about it.
But principal Peter Brooks said the school was within its rights not to enrol students who had been suspended or excluded from another school. He said the school board knew and it was not a secret.
“Principals in this region work together to say to each other: this student did a stupid thing, another chance will help them, we’ll help them.”
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But if a student had been excluded from school, principals were less likely to take them.
He said once a student had been suspended or excluded, an option was alternate education, which was for children who had disengaged from mainstream schooling.
Manawatū Community High School was an example of an alternative education provider.
Brooks believed the complaint was about a student who had been enrolled in another Palmerston North school at the same time as being enrolled in alternate education.
He said he had offered to enrol the student at Freyberg as long as the student was enrolled in alternative education as well, which the parent did not agree to.
Ministry of Education Te Tai Whenua Hautū (leader) Jocelyn Mikaere said it was aware of a case where Freyberg had declined to enrol a student.
“We worked with the whānau, and school and the student is now enrolled and started school [on Wednesday].”
Mikaere said the ministry had received four complaints since December about the school not enrolling students.
“We have dealt with these on a case-by-case basis due to the individual circumstances of each student and their whānau.
“We have reminded the school of their responsibility to enrol students that are within their enrolment zone and continue to work with all parties to ensure that students can enrol successfully.”
Brooks said the four complaints were students who had been suspended from other schools and Freyberg “said as a legal right we’re not taking those students”.
“On the other hand, think we have had many students we have taken during the course of this year, another 40 odd students, that we have taken who have moved to us for various reasons.”
He said there needed to be a better process when a student in this situation wanted to transfer to another school.
“You have the right to go to a school in your home zone, but if you’re going to change schools from the same zone, there needs to be some parameters so you’re not changing schools just because you’re not happy.”
