Jacinda Ardern visited Ashburton College and announced $50m would be invested into the school. Photo supplied.Mid Canterbury’s teachers as influencers of youth, do one of the most important jobs around, but they do their job in an increasingly tough environment. Reporter Sue Newman looks back at a year in education that was marked by some significant wins, but one that also faced the turbulence of strike action and an endless struggle to fully staff schools.

If you count the success of a year in dollars, then 2019 has to be a huge win for the Ashburton District’s schools – between three of them they were told they’d receive an investment of around $75 million that will see Allenton, Ashburton Intermediate and Ashburton College rebuilt, to varying degrees.

Allenton and Intermediate were given their big news in 2018 and this year has been one of planning for them; 2020, hopefully, will be one where construction actually starts. It’s a long road in education from the first tick in a project until the last.

But for Ashburton College, the year was huge. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited the school, toured the (tired) campus and announced that $50 million would be invested in the school to replace virtually every building.

As the year ticked by, the news got even better, $50 million became $60 million, because an error had been made in roll calculations against classroom needs. Principal Ross Preece was ecstatic.

He knows it’ll be a long road from today’s 50-plus-year-old campus to a brand spanking new one, but he and his staff reckon the wait until completion in 2025 will be worthwhile.

Most schools that were eligible to pick up the government funded bulk donation grant signed on by the end of the year. This means they’ll receive a cash hand-out to cover the things that the voluntary school donation did.

It was exactly that, voluntary, and that meant no school ever received every dollar from every student. The new option is a government gift of $150 a student, a hefty pay day for many schools, but of course there are fish hooks in that schools can no longer claim back cash for some of the extras they provide. The $150 grant covers it all.

For the first time in many years, the school year was marked by strike action. Stop work meetings and, on two occasions, large rallies, saw schools closed and placard-waving teachers marching down Ashburton’s State Highway 1.

The heart of the community was with them. Those rallies saw a surge in public support and greater understanding of the reality of life in the classroom 21st Century style. The strike action worked, settlements were forged, but not all issues were resolved.

Teaching is still in crisis with low numbers of people entering the profession and schools struggling to find the staff they need. As principals keep saying, it’s about getting the right person in your classrooms, not just any person.

Here’s hoping in 2020 the penny will finally drop, the Government will accept that teaching is a critically important profession and pay scales will be rejigged accordingly.

And it’s not just qualified teachers who have been putting up their hands in protest, support staff have been flying their own flags. These are the people who essentially allow classroom teachers to get on with teaching while they work alongside students with learning challenges.

Unbelievably, some of those people are barely earning a basic living wage for doing a job that is at best challenging.

Change is constant in education, but as the year wound down, a government task force released a to-do list for the future, one that contains some pretty sweeping changes that will impact on our district’s schools.

The way boards of trustees work will change, the ability for families to access out-of-school zones will be limited and there will be better support systems put in place for schools and students, no argument there.

Across the district a number of senior teachers retired after many years in the profession, taking with them a working lifetime of skills. Each one of those retirees will have had a significant impact on the lives of thousands of young poeople.

All departures from schools are significant, they all leave their mark and a big gap to fill. The impact is even greater when it’s at the top.

And this year we farewelled principal John Schreurs from Mount Hutt College. Departures mean arrivals and we welcomed Jack Saxon to the district we call home.

By Sue Newman - © The Ashburton Guardian - 30 December 2019