\u201cWe are not going to drop our jobs to be able to drop our kids at school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanssar has twin 14-year-old sons, Alexis and Emilien, at Hastings Boys\u2019 High School, which is roughly 20km from their home.<\/p>\n
Alexis has a hearing impairment and receives support for it at his current school.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s finally thriving … He\u2019s not targeted by bullying there. He really has found a nice place and feels at home,\u201d Sanssar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s in the second-top class, and his twin brother is in the top class …They want to be there, they are happy there. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve put it on the table. They said they don\u2019t want to go to Flaxmere College.<\/p>\n
\u201cHastings Boys\u2019 is working for them. Their academic and sports results shows it. Why would I send them elsewhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Onepu parent Desiree Janson, whose son uses the bus, said a school bus would still travel from rural Maraekakaho into Hastings and up Pakowhai Rd, but would not stop at Hastings Boys\u2019, Hastings Girls\u2019 or Karam\u016b High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just seems nonsensical to have a bus going all the way up to Hastings Girls\u2019 on Pakowhai Rd, then turning around without stopping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you\u2019re going to have extra cost for parents and extra buses on the road going exactly to the same places.\u201d<\/p>\n
Janson said she first learned about the change during an enrolment interview for her younger daughter in early November.<\/p>\n
Her 14-year-old son already attends Hastings Boys\u2019 High School, while her 13-year-old daughter is due to start at Hastings Girls\u2019 High School next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt came as a bit of a surprise, and not a lot of time for us to sort things out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Janson said her family chose Hastings Girls\u2019 because her two older daughters attended the school and they are familiar with its environment and programmes, while Hastings Boys\u2019 was selected for her son because of its engineering pathway, which she says is not offered in the same way at closer schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlaxmere College is 1.7km closer to our home. The Ministry of Education is creating a huge upheaval and added stress to parents, over 1.7km. <\/p>\n
\u201cLiving approximately 40km from Hastings City, it seems ridiculous to make these changes over such an insignificant distance,\u201d Janson says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ideal situation would be keeping it as one bus that does all of the schools, and if the parents that are not sending their child to their closest school have to pay extra, then so be it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ministry of Education leader of operations and integration Sean Teddy said he acknowledged the change was unsettling for some families.<\/p>\n
The ministry regular reviewed school bus routes to ensure they aligned with school transport policy and funding rules, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur recent review of our school bus route D050306 found that many students travelling on this service are not eligible for school transport assistance as they are not attending their closest school. <\/p>\n
\u201cTheir closest state secondary school is Flaxmere College, and their closest state-integrated [Catholic] secondary school is St John\u2019s College.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teddy said the ministry notified Hastings schools on July 2 this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the school\u2019s responsibility to notify their community of changes to their school bus services.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said students travelling to Karam\u016b High School were using the service under a private arrangement with the bus operator.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies with ineligible students can explore private arrangements with the bus operator, provided there is space and written consent from any schools being bypassed. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we acknowledge that caregivers have the right to choose where they enrol their children, the eligibility criteria for school transport assistance are intended to ensure the ongoing viability and integrity of local schooling networks by supporting students to attend their closest school. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis helps to prevent inefficiencies in the network due to excess demand at some schools and surplus capacity at others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastings Girls\u2019 High School assistant principal Rob Orr said it was the last remaining ministry-funded bus route serving their school, after previous cuts to Clive and Central Hawke\u2019s Bay routes.<\/p>\n
He said about 35 Hastings Girls\u2019 students had been affected across the three cancelled routes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in equity and equal opportunities for all students. These cuts are making it more difficult for families to get their students to their preferred schools,\u201d Orr said.<\/p>\n
Families affected by this latest change were notified in July, the same month the school received official confirmation from the ministry, he said.<\/p>\n
Orr said Hastings Girls\u2019 was considering subsidising a private bus route by $200, which meant families would pay about $250 per student, per term in 2026.<\/p>\n
Flaxmere College principal Cherie Heeney said the school respected the right of parents to choose the school that best meets their needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wellbeing and educational success of each individual student should always remain paramount,\u201d Heeney says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlaxmere College is a wh\u0101nau-based, inclusive school, and we pride ourselves on providing a high-quality education for all students who choose to attend here. <\/p>\n
\u201cI warmly encourage any wh\u0101nau affected by these changes to come in, meet with me, and take a tour of our beautiful facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastings Boys\u2019 High School did not want to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe are not going to drop our jobs to be able to drop our kids at school.\u201d Sanssar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,30482,3595,3588,84,5194,3594,107071,28874,111,43,139,69,1118,3111,3766,8145,4062],"class_list":{"0":"post-163199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-bus","10":"tag-by","11":"tag-cut","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-hastings","14":"tag-hit","15":"tag-maraekakaho","16":"tag-ministry","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-of","22":"tag-out","23":"tag-parents","24":"tag-run","25":"tag-school"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163199","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=163199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}