Same grant, but different standards

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 19

Same grant, but different standards

ST MARTINS

Christchurch’s champion fundraising school must be St Martins. It gets a grant of about $14,500 from the Education Board, and then it raises a greater amount — $15,000 to $20,000 a year — by its own efforts.

It began when a special fundraising committee was formed as a separate incorporated society to raise money for a school hall in 1972. Once that was achieved, it continued as the St Martins School Fundraising Society Inc., raising substantial amounts every year for special purposes fixed by the teaching staff.

John Fogarty, a lawyer, who is chairman of the school committee, says the fund-raising committee is raising $ll,OOO this year for the priorities listed by the staff. It is being used to buy a $3500 plainpaper photo-copier and complete a basement storage area, which involved raising the library off its foundations and building storage underneath.

A $5OO incidentals “grant” will be spent on resource books, stationery, and audio-visual materials. Four “syndicates” of classes will get $lOOO each for materials for instructional reading, social studies, science and maths equipment.

The rest of the $ll,OOO will be

spent on school library books, sports, physical education, and playground equipment (51000), and the purchase of tents for outdoor education. The committee has already bought the school a fleet of small yachts. A major source of the committee’s income is the housie which it runs every week at a local tavern. Another is the annual school fair. It also hires out a trailer, holds a fund-raising sports night, rag drives and dances, and makes and sells lunches and hot drinks at the school in winter. Last year, the fund-raisers also sold bricks and wood.

In addition to the funds raised by the fund-raising committee, the school commitee gets money directly from the parents’ donations ($9.50 for one child, $ll for two), and from the sale of class photographs, hiring out the yachts, half of the rent from the school hall, the sale of pool keys, and the sale of stationery. St Martins estimates that its grant from the board is $2OOO short of what it needs. Last year it spent $l5OO from its No. 2 account (money raised by the school) on library books alone, and more than $l2OO on classroom materials. It paid for repairs to the pool, and put in a public address system so, that teachers can reply when they are paged. Violins were repaired from that

account, projector screens were bought for the audio-visual system, and $6OO was spent on planting trees and shrubs to beautify the grounds. Mr Fogarty says that the St Martins suburb has a strong sense of community. He describes it as middle-income, ranging from Ed houses” on the slopes of bury and Murray Aynsley through to working-class homes on the fringe of Waltham — “a very well-balanced suburb.” “We’re successful at fund-rais-ing,” he says, “but it’s hard work. Housie requires a team each week, and there are worldng bees at the school every Saturday morning.” He sees an undoubted social benefit in these activities. This is Mr Bill McCaw’s first year as principal of St Martins, and he says the fund-raising machinery there is unique in his experience. The board’s grant is not enough to get by on, and fund-raising must be done just for the school’s everyday needs.

St Martins has been a very supportive community for the school, says Mr McCaw, and the committee has been able to involve the parents very much in fundraising. “They’re a very able group of fund-raisers,” he says, “and they’ve gained a lot out of it too. If the purpose is seen as worthwhile by the parents, they rally round.”

ARANUI

Aranui School has the same number of pupils as St Martins, and gets the same amount of grant money from the Education Board. It is able to raise much less from the parents and community, and the school’s facilities are fairly basic, but neither the principal nor the school committee chairman is complaining. Mr P. Mischewski, chairman of Aranui’s school committee, says it has to struggle to get a quorum to start a meeting. Only one parent turned up to the election meeting, so the old committee had to reelect itself. Mr Mischewski says there is a lot of apathy in the area. He thinks people are afraid it will cost them money if they get involved But the committee that Aranui does have is very active. It has completed a number of projects, including providing new poles and hoops for the basketball courts, new outside seating so that children do not have to sit on the asphalt for assemblies, extensions to the audio system, and improvements to the pool. “The way things are today, people have not got a lot of money," says Mr Mischewski, “especially in this area. It is a working-class area.” Even so, he estimates that the parents and

local community have done more than $6OOO worth of work at the school in the last two years.

A lot of work still needs to be done at the school, Mr Mischewski says. While it has all the equipment it needs, it lacks floor-coverings for two classrooms — a board responsibility, but Aranui is twelfth in the queue. “I don’t say that the board should give us more money,” says the chairman. “It’s healthy to have to raise some money for the school. We always have money in the bank, and we work hard for what we get.” Mr Bill Billing, principal of Aranui School, feels that the grant is adequate to cover the necessities. “We try to keep additional fundraising to a minimum. Most people here are not able to provide much. Over 80 per cent are in the labouring class, and we have a high percentage of unemployed, a high percentage of ethnic groups, and a high percentage of solo parents.” Aranui’s fund-raising is confined to the school’s urgent needs. It had to find $4OOO to bring its swimming baths up to standard; the parents rallied round and found the money. Last year the pupils raised nearly $2OOO for a physical education circuit.

The annual “levy” on parents is $lO a child, or $l5 for a family, and this year’s response of 60 per cent

was the best ever. Any extra money raised by the school goes into the library. This year it is being spent on a reading recovery programme. Aranui, as a “disadvantaged” school, gets a special need grant of $4OO as well. But Mr Billing does not feel that Aranui is disadvantaged in being unable to raise a lot for extra facilities. “We don’t have lavish equipment like video gear,” he says. “We have put money into listening. posts — individual headphones to be used for specially prepared programmes for children with poor listening skills.” Although the school has no outdoor education equipment or facilities of its own, Mr Billing says a class is taken to Hanmer, Arthur’s Pass, or Loburn each year except this year, when the scheme fell through because of staff changes.) The money is raised by levying each family $2O, then reimbursing them according to the amount the children themselves are able to raise. Last year, the children reduced the family levies to $8 a head. Mr Billing is appreciative of the board’s help, but says the 73-year-old school has cold classrooms in winter because a scheme approved in 1982 to replace the antiquated heating system was axed by the Government. He has also been fighting for years for a new stormwater system.