Ōmokoroa community engages with new school plans

Western Bay of Plenty Council Mayor Garry Webber, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti, and Labour List MP Angie Warren-Clark at the Ōmokoroa community consultation on Saturday. Photo: Supplied.

Members of the Ōmokoroa community are providing ideas and input into what they want to see incorporated into a new primary and secondary school for the peninsula.

The communuty turned out in large numbers to an engagement drop-in session on Saturday at the Ōmokoroa Library.

'The number of people that turned up was just amazing,” says Labour List MP and Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti.

The Ministry of Education has appointed Warren and Mahoney Architects to prepare the masterplans for the new schools, and they facilitated Saturday's community engagement session.

'The community have put a lot of thought into what they want, and their input will reflect who the community are and what they want and that's what I'm really excited about," says Tinetti.

She says she's amazed at the ideas that people had come up with.

'Inclusion came through strongly. People were coming up and asking questions that weren't obvious when they walked into the room. They wanted to know ‘what is the process from now?', ‘what is the time frame around this?', ‘when will they see this come to fruition?' There were a lot of questions that people got to put their input into, about the facilities and values.”

Currently, secondary students must travel to Tauranga or Katikati for schooling.

For students living in Ōmokoroa, their nearest public secondary school is Ōtūmoetai College, which is 17km away.

Concerned parent Jo Linthwaite started a petition in August 2018 calling for a secondary school to be built in Ōmokoroa because of the long hours children were spending on buses and in traffic.

Her petition gained over 2000 signatures and garnered support from Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council Mayor Garry Webber also attended the community consultation on Saturday.

'It was a really neat to see so many people particularly parents with school age children there,” says Webber.

'The Ministry of Education had coincided the open day with when the junior sports were on, so a lot of kids playing sport, and parents took them into the consultation."

Webber says he's quite surprised that, all things going to plan, the Ministry of Education is hoping to start students through the school in 2025.

'Which was sooner than I thought and really pleasing.”

The new primary and secondary schools first announced in 2019 will provide capacity for up to 1950 students across both schools.

The new secondary school will be the first secondary school in the Ōmokoroa catchment area, addressing community concerns over the current travel times faced by senior students.

Ongoing housing development will see 1200 new homes in Ōmokoroa by 2025, and another development area in the west of the Ōmokoroa Peninsula is expected to deliver approximately 3,200 additional new dwellings.

Webber says the new facility will provide for Year 1 to Year 13 students, 'so it's both a primary and secondary school on the one site”.

'The foundation board is put into place and will appoint the principal based on the sort of leadership they want to see running the school,” says Tinetti.

'The principal will work with the board to appoint the staff.”

Webber says that Western Bay Council are looking at how they can combine some community facilities with Ministry of Education facilities to get better utilisation.

One example is a library shared both by a school and the local community, and he cites examples of this at schools in both Riccarton, Christchurch, and Nelson.

'When we built the sports pavilion at Ōmokoroa, we provided the end part of it as a library knowing it was a temporary location for it,” says Webber.

'One thing we need to work through with the Ministry of Education and Council Is how can we work together. Not only having a library at the school that's also used by the community, but also can we have that over the school playground too.

'We're fortunate, in that in Ōmokoroa, it's been greenfields development. We've been able to get in on early engagement and look at how we can do things together which ends up being a more community facility.”

Webber says there are 14 school buses coming in and out of Ōmokoroa on a daily basis, transporting students to Aquinas, Bethlehem College, Tauranga Boys' College, Tauranga Girls' College, Otumoetai Primary, Otumoetai Intermediate, Otumoetai College, and Ōmokoroa N.o.1 School.

'It makes it a long day for those kids," says Webber.

'Local schools in established areas have been under increasing pressure as the demographics of these neighbourhoods change to include more families with school-age children,” says Tinetti.

'I've been a school principal, I know how important it is for school communities to be reflected in their schools,' says Tinetti.

'And I am truly passionate about the Ōmokoroa community having a big impact into what this school will reflect. If we get this right we are truly showing what the power of a community can be in a school.”

Tinetti says as well as working with the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, they are also working with Pirirākau hapū to plan for the schools.

'The relationships forged with the hapū will help to keep the educational goals of Pirirākau at the forefront of the school development.”

She says she was excited to be attending a community engagement exercise 'designed to ensure the voices, aspirations, and cultural values of the Ōmokoroa community are considered in the development of the new schools”.

'Its purpose is to help ensure the curriculum and learning environments have meaning for students, connect with their wider lives, and engage the support of their families, whānau and communities,” says Tinetti.

'The school used to be the heart of the community. It does take a village to raise the child. Ōmokoroa is a strong community. They are great lobbyists for this school and that's why I want to have their input.”

Minister Tinetti says other opportunities will be available for the community to have their say about the schools.

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1 comment

Community inclusion?

Posted on 10-05-2022 21:04 | By TheCameltoeKid

I'm sorry Ms Tinetti but when ever has this Government listened to anybody? Just lipservice.


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