Don Buck Primary School,
124 Don Buck Road, Massey, Auckland 0614.
Phone : (09) 833-6005 Fax : (09) 832-4065 “Seize the Day”
Email : office@donbuck.school.nz “Rarawhitia te Ra”
3rd August 2018
Dear whānau,
School closed on Wednesday 15 August due to strike action
On Wednesday, the majority of members of the teachers union, the NZEI, voted to strike for a full day in response to the Ministry of Education’s collective employment offer.
In support of our teachers’ stance, and because without them there is no one to run the school safely, the Board of Trustees will close the school for that day. Therefore, the school will be closed on Wednesday 15 August.
We do not make this decision lightly and we appreciate that it will put you under pressure to find childcare and make other arrangements. To help with this, sKids, our before and after school carers, have offered to be here all day. To make a booking with them, please contact Manel on 022 654 5248.
We believe that the benefits of supporting teachers in their fight for proper resourcing of your child’s education is worth it.
Pay is not the biggest issue for teachers at our school, and we note that the offer from the Ministry will actually put some of our teachers in a worse financial position: the nominal rise will mean a corresponding cut in the Working for Families credit that will see less in some pay packets at the end of the fortnight.
What our teachers want from the Ministry are:
- more resources and specialists to help them support the most vulnerable students and
- more time per student and more non-contact time so that they don’t have to work at the weekend in order to get their jobs done.
We support them fully in this.
Yours sincerely,
Cherie Palmer
Chair of the Board of Trustees