The bid was backed by a sponsor called Bangerz Education and Wellbeing Trust (Bewt), which is a youth charity.<\/p>\n
The Bewt website said it operated a youth hub in New Lynn and that its board was \u201cmade up of Pasifika and M\u0101ori youth who are under 25\u2033.<\/p>\n
It lodged an application this month to convert Kelston Boys\u2019 to a charter school, saying if that was approved, it would complete the conversion and hire a new principal and leadership by January 2026, ready for the new school year.<\/p>\n
Its unsolicited takeover was based on claims of deep academic failure at the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly 12.1% of [Kelston Boys\u2019] Year 13 students were awarded University Entrance in 2024,\u201d Bewt stated on its website.<\/p>\n
However, Samuela said the school was making great strides, citing the school\u2019s \u201chighest-ever [NCEA] Level 3 pass rates\u201d in 2024 and numerous national sports and cultural titles.<\/p>\n
That included winning the World Schools Rugby Festival in Abu Dhabi and placings in Polyfest cultural categories, while the number of enrolled students was also growing, Samuela said.<\/p>\n
He warned the bid was an \u201cunnecessary distraction\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis proposal has come at the most crucial time for students and families with exams,\u201d Samuela wrote in his open letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very proud of the progress that has been made over recent years and the plans to continue to grow and improve for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
If its charter school conversion application is successful, Bewt would manage the school.<\/p>\n
The application said its running of the school would see a narrowed curriculum, staffing flexibility and reduced Ministry of Education interference to \u201cdramatically increase student achievement\u201d.<\/p>\n
Existing staff would automatically become employees of the charter school under the same conditions, but teachers would no longer be covered by the collective agreement.<\/p>\n
Bewt\u2019s consultation report said emails in opposition have been received from around 40% of teachers and support staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease cease from emailing me concerning your proposal,\u201d one staff response said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am fully supportive of the achievements and direction of our school. Do not contact me again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teachers\u2019 union, the PPTA, has also told the trust it is \u201ccategorically opposed\u201d to a plan to \u201cforcibly\u201d convert a public school to a charter school.<\/p>\n
Bewt admitted it had not held public meetings to consult with parents, claiming there were fears supporters would face \u201cretribution\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, it said it had held several \u201csideline, coffee-shop or mall\u201d discussions with parents, and \u201cthe majority of parents just are not particularly concerned either way\u201d.<\/p>\n
If successful, the application would have to be approved in a process run by the Ministry of Education that required the Charter School Authorisation Board to consider the \u201clevel of support from the school community, school staff, and students\u201d among other categories.<\/p>\n
The Herald approached Kelston Boys\u2019 High School and Siaosi Gavet for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bid was backed by a sponsor called Bangerz Education and Wellbeing Trust (Bewt), which is a youth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,76865,1040,1848,3595,76864,1259,3245,76866,6119,76867,71,209,42,2959,46613,296,26662,76863,43,6791,3109,7241,4062,40249,26592,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-106679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-bewt","tag-bid","tag-boys","tag-by","tag-charter","tag-community","tag-convert","tag-distancing","tag-faces","tag-forcibly","tag-from","tag-group","tag-headlines","tag-high","tag-hostile","tag-into","tag-itself","tag-kelston","tag-news","tag-prominent","tag-public","tag-publicly","tag-school","tag-seeking","tag-takeover","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}