A school in Waikato for some of the country’s highest-risk youth will close next week, prompting fears troubled youngsters and ram raiders will end up back on the streets.
Eleven children aged 9-16 attend the Hamilton school. Many are victims of sexual abuse, have foetal alcohol syndrome, or in one case have been forced to take drugs from the age of nine for the entertainment of family members.
Last year, Newshub alerted the Education Minister Jan Tinetti that her Ministry was shutting down the highly acclaimed Kauri Centre.
Tinetti stepped in at the eleventh hour and gave the school a year's reprieve, but now Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Education who jointly fund the Kauri Centre are closing its doors.
“Some of these kids don’t stand a chance out of here we are sort of the last line of defence for them” said teacher aide Jimmylee Foreman who has been teaching there four years.
Colleague Cameron Ferguson describes the boys “as diamonds in the rough that have huge potential to change and be role models in their own communities, and within their families".
He fears they will “get lost in the system and be another number we don’t want them to end up in the prison system as an adult".
It costs the Ministry of Education and Oranga Tamariki $600,000 a year to operate the Kauri Centre.
The nine teachers at the school say there’s been little consultation and they fear for the future of the boys, as “we are the only stable influence in their lives, and when they come here they just blossom".
Newly-appointed Education Minister Erica Stanford told Newshub work to close the centre has been underway since last year under Labour.
She personally phoned Hillcrest High School’s principal who had a contract to oversee the Kauri Centre, and was advised the contract is up.
“I have sought assurances from the Ministry that they will be placed in appropriate centres for their needs.”
Education Ministry spokesperson Jocelyn Mikaere told Newshub Ministry staff “have found places for nine of the students and are actively working to secure places that meet the needs of the remaining two young people.”
She said they will have a “bespoke wraparound plan specific to them. .. including returning to mainstream schooling, alternative education or receiving an early leaving exemption to attend a course or work experience programme.”
But the Kauri Centre is unique by the Ministry’s own admission.
Children are complex, recently one boy threw concrete slabs around breaking windows.
Newshub has learned he is one of at least three students who will be placed in a mainstream school in Hamilton.
“We have a wealth of knowledge to tap into, trauma-informed care is the key thing for us, how does a teacher in charge of 30 + children do that?”
"If that doesn’t work out there are places of alternative education they can go to around the Waikato."
One foster mother who took in a boy two years ago, with parents who were once P addicts, is imploring the Minister to rethink the closure of the Kauri Centre.
“She is making a mistake, these teachers are incredible. In his case he came from not wanting to go to school to having a part-time job, going to school every day.. really striving to be someone.”
The Kauri Centre will close on December 8, it’s understood Oranga Tamariki plans to operate a residential unit on the site.
Both Ferguson and Foreman say the closure is distressing for the youngsters and staff who are a close-knit group.
“I just hope these boys know we do care, everyone does care. It’s hard to see that taken away from us because they all deserve more,” said Cameron Ferguson.
