Open Letter: Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Whangaroa

Dear Sir,

Your correspondents Terry Smith and Moana Tuwhare are mistaken in their belief that the whanau who left Te Kura Kaupapa Maori early in 2014 were doing so in protest at the firing of the former principal and that our agenda is to get her back. I support the reasons outlined in the letter by Arena Heta.

Speaking for myself, and my three children, we left because I was appalled at how the matter of Louisa and several other allegations of physical abuse were dealt with by the former Board. A formal allegation of physical abuse and bullying was made in writing and handed to Mr Smith, who later told whanau he had “forgotten” receiving it, despite being told what it contained when it was handed to him. The affected families brought the matter to a hui some weeks later and made the allegation again in public to the kura whanau in the presence of the teacher and some of the tamariki. This compromised their privacy, their children’s privacy and the privacy of the teacher concerned. They did this because of their extreme frustration that the matter had not been dealt with and I understand that, but they should never have been put in that position by a board who was administering the school properly. The matter should have been heard, thoroughly investigated and dealt with according to proper policy and procedure. That they were so quick to fire Ms Mutu for a transgression and so slow to even investigate another allegation indicated to me the former board were playing favourites, which I do not consider professional or appropriate. Mr Smith showed no inclination to hear anybody’s opinion but his own, and indeed telephoned me once and proceeded to tell me exactly what I should think. By then I had already formed my own opinion based on events I watched unfold.

Those events were troubling enough, but in December and January some of the staff recounted stories of threatening emails, threatening encounters and being locked out of the kura and having their passwords changed by the former Board, which prevented them doing their planning for 2014 with no indication of when their access might be restored. It was clear that staff were under immense pressure and as a result several well qualified and experienced teachers left at that time. It was becoming obvious that the kura was not a safe place for our tamariki to be.

We took the action of alerting Te Runanganui, the Ministry of Education and several of our local MPs. Te Runanganui listened to the former Board, and proceeded to tell us what the issue was in our kura, and that if we didn’t like their solution, we could leave. Fortunately the MOE was more objective and investigated the matter fully, resulting in the dismissal of the former Board and the appointment of the Commissioner. This was absolutely the right intervention, as Mr Forbes objectivity and neutrality has been necessary in moving the kura forward and will hopefully go some way to allowing the community to heal.

The matter of the former Principal’s dismissal is to a large extent irrelevant. It was only after she left that the former Board’s complete lack of accountability came to light.

Gary Bramley.

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