The father of a student at Whangārei Boys' High School is in "disbelief and shock" the fatal trip to Abbey Caves on Tuesday went ahead.
One student, who has been named by family as Karnin Ahorangi Petera, died on the caving trip.
Whangārei local Scotty Booth had booked his son Jayden in for a caving and rock climbing trip with the school, but he and his wife got concerned about the weather the day before.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, he reckons schools large enough should implement safety staff.
"I hope every school with a certain amount of students has a full-time health and safety manager, because someone's got to be responsible for these activities," he told Newshub.
WHAT HAPPENED ON TUESDAY?
Search and rescue teams found a body late on Tuesday evening while looking for one missing student after a group of 17 got trapped in the Abbey Caves during heavy rain.
The boy's death has since caused outrage in the community.
"It could've been avoided so easily," Booth told Newshub.
Whangārei Boys' sent an email to parents on Monday, a day before the trip, noting the bad weather forecast.
It scrapped plans for rock climbing due to forecasted rain but kept the caving element.
"Which I found quite… Mmm… As you can imagine," said Booth.
"It just surprised me that [that] was suggested."
He said he's involved in aviation, so he studies the weather often, and pulled his son out of the trip knowing what could happen.
"Regardless of what the school says, I'm not gonna let him go."
Booth told Newshub his family didn't know there was a death initially, but knew the kids were trapped in the cave.
"Complete disbelief and shock that they'd gone ahead and done what they'd done."
He said there were plenty of weather warnings, and despite the school doing a risk assessment, "no one followed through."
"At the end of the day, it's common sense. People don't have that anymore - it's very frustrating. There were enough weather warnings. Meteorologists today make it simple for people to go and read the weather."
NEXT STEPS
He said the school's in a difficult situation now.
But "unfortunately they've put themselves in that situation. There's no reason why we should've had a loss of life over this."
Adding to that, he said the 14 other children will now have issues "that they'll carry with them for some time."
Despite admitting prosecution doesn't always help, Booth argues we must learn from this experience and said he'll file an official complaint with WorkSafe.
For now, Booth said he'll hold his breath and "let the investigation do its thing."
WorkSafe confirmed they have opened an investigation into the incident.
Whangārei Boys' High School principal Karen Gilbert-Smith told Newshub in a statement their "thoughts and aroha" are with the whānau and the students, even more so now a body had been recovered.
"It is really important for me to let you know how devastated we are that one of our whānau have lost a much loved, and treasured, son and brother," she said.
"The impact of this tragedy is being felt widely amongst our school staff, students and community.
"I realise that people have lots of questions but I simply am not in a position to provide answers at this early stage out of respect for the whānau."
A Givealittle page has been set up to help support the boy's whānau.
