Suzanne Billington says rural schools will find it hard to source relieving teachers to fill gaps left by unvaccinated staff stepping down.
The covid vaccination mandate has left few rural schools untouched by staff losses, with most losing at least one member and left struggling to source relief teachers as the school year end approaches.
School principals were continuing to negotiate with vaccine-hesitant staff members right up to the November 15 first jab deadline and many remain in discussions on staff members’ futures after the date.
A NZ Principals Federation survey that covered nine regions nationally found close to 1% of school teachers, or about 700, have refused the vaccine.
But King Country Principals Association president Maria Gillard says staff losses are more likely to range from between 15-100% across 15 schools in her region.
“That is a problem for rural communities. It is not as if we have more people outside the door waiting to take their place,” Gillard said.
She says for the region’s high schools the issue was manageable, but for smaller primary schools it was far more challenging.
Matiere School north-west of Taumarunui has been the most extreme case, where none of its six staff nor its board of trustees were vaccinated and there were fears it would have to close.
After closing this Tuesday, it was due to reopen with reduced staffing while an exemption from the mandate was applied for.
But Gillard says any possible loopholes for exemptions were getting increasingly smaller as the Ministry of Education clamped down.
Rural principals had raised the issue of a mandate’s impact with Ministry of Education staff before it came to media attention, but it had taken a major effort to get the Ministry to recognise the problems the mandate may raise for rural schools.
“We don’t have the skills in these communities to fill the gap. In this district there is only one reliever to cover all the schools,” she said.
One Te Kuiti school faced the possibility of 64% of its staff, including teacher aides and support staff, leaving.
She suggested an option may be to offer a regular covid test to staff choosing not to vaccinate.
But the rural school principals’ frustration appears to run deepest over the timing of the mandate, coming as the year approaches its end and school reports and activities remain unfinished.
A Bay of Plenty rural school principal told Farmers Weekly he had no issue with schools’ responsibility to protect children from the virus by staff being vaccinated.
“But certainly, the timing was abysmal, other people cannot write reports for the students,” he said.
He says it was also difficult in small rural communities to not be completely upfront with parents about what staffs’ vaccination status was.
Western Bay of Plenty Principal’s Association president Suzanne Billington says a survey in the region indicates about 15-20% of staff across schools are choosing not to be vaccinated.
The Bay of Plenty District Health Board area is among the bottom five boards nationally for first vaccination shots at 86%.
“And if you are a small school, you often reflect your community and some are quite anti-vax,” Billington Said.
As principal of Tauriko school on the outskirts of Tauranga she was dealing with a teacher and teacher aide among her 27 staff who were choosing not to be vaccinated.
She anticipated demand on relief teaching staff across rural schools would become significantly tougher in coming days.
However, she was also optimistic that the gaps may decline as reluctant staff reflect over the Christmas break and decide to opt in for the new year.
“It could get better. We know at this point it will not get much worse,” she said.
Further south in North Canterbury, principal of Hurunui Area School Steven Beck says as president of the NZ Area Schools Association he had more queries about how school pools would be managed over summer than about the covid mandate for teachers.
“Overall, there does not seem to be a sense of dread or concern. There are specific cases within schools that may present challenges, say a senior teacher leaving, but overall, there has been a very high level of compliance across rural schools,” Beck said.
“It will be a sad day in some school staff rooms, but we do need to recognise the responsibility of working with children and to a large extent people have put aside their individual thoughts on this.”
Southland Primary School Principals Association president Simon Bell has had to rearrange some classes to allow for small staff losses at Otautau School, something that was typical across most schools in the region.
“Most may have had to fill one position, but the real issue is we just do not have the relieving teachers to fill those gaps in rural areas,” Bell said.
He believed with the traffic light system coming soon, there may become more indirect pressure on staff who had earlier chosen not to be vaccinated, due to restrictions on other aspects of their lives.
