Teacher fights for rooms

Press, 1 August 1989, Page 4

Teacher fights for rooms

PA Auckland An Auckland primary school teacher has threatened to leave 60 of her children in two classrooms to stop Education Department trucks taking the buildings away. The Mt Albert principal, Mrs Maureen Tuckerman, said yesterday that the school needed the relocatable rooms — but the Auckland Education Board planned to move them to Cornwall Park School. Mrs Tuckerman will refuse to remove the children from the rooms.

“If the truck comes,” she said, “Fm going to leave the kids in there.” The school has found itself caught in the changeover involved in the Government’s education reform. The Auckland Education Board’s assistant executive officer for

planning, Ms Pat Walsh, said it was an awkward time, with the board due to be dismantled in October.

Mt Albert Primary had four classrooms more than it should, and with projected falls in the roll this would increase to five by 1994. Tenders for the removal of the rooms closed yesterday, she said.

The school’s trustee board chairman, Mr Terry Locke, has written to the Education Department’s director general, Mr Russ Ballard, asking for money to be given to the Auckland Education Board to buy two more classrooms for Cornwall Park; Dr Locke said after September local trustee boards could hire extra classrooms as they saw fit

The removal of the two classrooms would be a disaster.