Tens of thousands of parents around the country are backing the Teacher's strike today.
Marnie Wilton is an administrator for a Facebook page called 'I Back the Teachers' which has almost 10,000 members.
Parents and children supporting Teachers' Mega strike Photo: RNZ/ Richard Wells
“I believe that this isn't just a crisis for the teachers, it’s actually a crisis for our kids' education and for New Zealand, so it's important to me.’ Marnie says ‘I believe passionately in quality education for our children. Also, it's actually starting to affect myself, my friends, and the parents on the Facebook group,"
"There are so many stories on there about how this crisis is beginning to affect our kids and if we don't do something now, it's going to have such a detrimental effect in the future.”
Marnie says parents on the Facebook page herself included, are worried about the high number of classes being covered by relief teachers.
“There's a huge shortage of teachers, for example, in my son's class, the teacher resigned halfway through the first term, and he had relievers through the rest of the term, they couldn't find a teacher, which was very disruptive for the students, because it's not consistent, the learning begins to be affected.”
Marnie Wilton's children making signs to support Teachers' Mega strike. Photo: RNZ/ Marnie Wilton
She says many parents have offered to care for other children whose parents haven't been able to find childcare today.
"I think one woman in our group has got six kids today - looking after other peoples' kids too. So, you know, there's a lot of that kind of support for each other," she said.
"I totally acknowledge and I don't want to skip over how hard today will be for quite a few parents. There's no question about it. It's not easy. You're having to juggle kids while you're a working parent," said Marnie.
"However, at the same time, parents are still saying we still want this to happen. We want the teachers to go on strike so that they can send a strong message because if they don't it's going to be so much harder for us, if nothing changes for our children."
It is thought nearly 50,000 teachers will hit the streets in a mega strike today, but they won't be alone. Thousands of parents and their children will be joining them.
Parents supporting Teachers mega strike Photo: RNZ/ Richard Wells
