April 28, 2015
Schools undermined by CYFS
New Zealand First deputy leader Tracey Martin has accused Child, Youth and Family of undermining Maori boarding schools by dumping troubled teens on them.
Ms Martin is pushing for government action to help Hato Petera, which is in a dispute with its landlord, the Auckland Catholic diocese, over its lease.
She says it’s owed something because the current principal and management have done a great job turning the school around after it got into trouble trying to manage too many children who technically were in state care.
"They need more support than most young people. So just dumping them on a school and saying ‘There you go, have at it,’ is not good enough by the government department, but that is what had happened. Forty percent of the Hato Petera’s roll were children from the Waikato region that had been placed there by CYFS, and then CYFS had walked away," Ms Martin says.
She says no school should have more than 5 percent of its roll being children with serious problems.
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