Legal action over changes to resource teaching roles 'possible'
By Rachel Helyer Donaldson of RNZ
The country's largest teaching union is considering legal action against the government's decision to cut resource teachers in primary schools, confirmed last month as part of the Budget.
Ministry of Education documents from February show that 84 schools employed resource teachers for literacy support, 40 employed resource teachers for Māori and three schools employed both. Nationally, there are a maximum of 121 full-time positions for Resource Teachers of Literacy (RTL) and 53 for Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM).
Minister for Education Erica Stanford said that was a small number of teachers for the country's 2000 primary schools, and, during a consultation process in March, schools had told her the current system was "not equitable".
Stanford said funding was now in place for 349 structured literacy teachers, who would provide support within classrooms - rather than driving from school to school as was the case under the current system - and she encouraged literacy resource teachers "who are amazingly well-qualified and passionate people" to consider applying for those roles.
NZEI national secretary Stephanie Mills said the union was waiting on more information from Stanford about how she came to the decision, and then it would decide next steps.
"We've said from the beginning of the consultation process that we will explore all options to keep those resources intact. It's not about getting rid of a certain number of positions, it's a service that's been built up over time." 'Disrespected and gaslit'
Mills said NZEI had requested details about how Stanford reached her decision via an official information request. The union had asked to see the consultation document prior to the announcement and was told that would be provided a fortnight in advance, but confirmation the roles would be defunded came as part of the Budget.
Teachers felt "really disrespected and gaslit" as a result, she added.
"These teachers are some of our most experienced and skilled, and they're not being treated in a good way."
Mills said many of the current resource teachers were working in rural places and she feared those schools would no longer get the same support.
"It will be quite a different role in the new system. The [same] service won't exist and the jobs won't exist."
Mills said it was an "irony" the literacy resource roles were being cut, "when the government wants structured literacy". Meanwhile RTMs were, in many situations, the only frontline support for kaiako and tamariki Māori. "Māori RTs are like a taonga." Not a cut but 'a reinvestment'
Stanford said she would not be commenting on what action the resource teachers might take.
The move was about schools and students, not the teachers, she said.
"It's about the way we deliver the service, and this advice was given to me by the sector itself, by schools saying 'the way the model is being delivered it's not equitable and many schools are missing out' ... The ones who are getting the service may not have the greatest need, so it's very inequitable.
"What we are doing is shifting that model to an in-class delivery - small groups, intervention teachers, in school."
Stanford said the NZ Resource Teachers Literary Association had had "clear information and met multiple times with ministry officials" and they had been "very clear about the reasons, about the opportunities for them in other roles, and they've met a number of times and they have been given that information".
The move was not a cut but a "reinvestment", Stanford insisted.
"We've already resourced 349 Tier 2 structured literacy intervention roles, over and above the 100 literacy positions that there currently are, so it is not a cut, it is a reinvestment into a better delivery model."
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