TROUBLED PUPILS KEPT ON AT SCHOOL

High school students "causing merry hell" are being held in schools by
Government measures that principals say are designed to make
politicians look better.

Rangiora High School principal Peggy Burrows has spoken out on a
Ministry of Education policy to cut early-leaving exemptions in half.

She was yesterday backed by the presidents of the Canterbury and
national principals' associations.

"Because it's an election year, the Government is trying to make sure
the statistics look really good," Burrows said.

A clampdown on troubled students being allowed to leave before they
turned 16 was "very difficult".

"You're dealing probably with the most disengaged group or, in North
Canterbury, with young men who have got really good job opportunities
and can earn really good money and they don't see the reason for
staying at school," she said.

A ministry policy introduced in May last year aimed for the number of
high school early-leaving exemptions to be halved.

The latest report from the ministry shows 6.6 per cent of applications
were turned down in 2006, rising to 36 per cent last year.

About 28 per cent fewer students applied in 2007. The changes meant a
net reduction of 50 per cent in the number of exemptions granted.

Burrows said there was also pressure to reduce the number of
suspensions and stand-downs, which made it impossible to enforce a
zero-tolerance policy on drug use.

"We get hammered for our high suspension rates," she
said.

"The thing that I can't understand is the double standard. It's
against the law to have marijuana and yet schools are expected to do
something other than what the law dictates.

"There has to be a line in the sand for things like drugs because of
the safety of students," she said.

Ministry national manager of schools and student support Jim Greening
said the ministry advised schools to take a reasonable and fair
approach to disciplinary issues.

"Schools need to ensure that their policies are flexible and reflect
the needs of the situation," Greening said.

"It is important that student support needs are assessed on a
case-by-case basis to ensure actions are appropriate to the
circumstances and take into account the background of the student, not
just the incident at issue."

Burrows said: "If you go and say that those kids cannot leave school
and then you don't fund alternative programmes, principals like me
effectively have to invent programmes and staff them and do that out
of an existing budget, and that's virtually impossible to do."

Canterbury Westland Secondary Principals' Association chairman Denis
Pyatt said the change in policy for early-leaving exemptions was a
sore point.

"Every principal you talk to will have stories to tell you of kids who
should not be at school ... who when they come to school cause merry
hell and because they don't meet the absurdly high criteria for
early-leaving exemptions, they can't get one," he said.

"They almost invariably are behavioural issues. In some cases you get
a kid who just can't cope in school and therefore they get bored to
tears and the behaviour starts to disrupt."

Pyatt said Burrows was correct in saying the policy was designed to
"make the statistics look good".

Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand president Peter Gall
also backed Burrows.

"There's no doubt about it that the ministry, as agents of the
Government, want to have the rates as low as possible. It's a good
news story for them if they have lower rates," he said.

Even in the most deserving cases, early-leaving exemptions were
denied.

"It's a farce really. It's made a nonsense of things," Gall
said.

"In days gone by, if somebody was involved in smoking marijuana at
school, the school's zero tolerance to that would have ended up with
that kid being kicked out of school.

"Nowadays, that doesn't tend to happen."

Cashmere High School principal Dave Turnbull said he had not suspended
a student all year.

The school had been fighting a spate of vandalism in the toilets,
leading one teacher to threaten that Portaloos would be brought in if
students did not tidy up their act.

"What do you do when a student decides to assault another student and
this is the third time?" Turnbull said.

"Schools generally try lots of things. We try the educative response
first of all.

"Ultimately, however, sometimes the punitive response is a necessity,
so I will still suspend kids or stand them down," Turnbull said.