The Ministry of Education says guidance is available for schools to help them understand when a sick child should stay home. Photo: Unsplash
Schools across the country are desperate for staff as winter illness knocks teachers and students out of commission.
A shortage of qualified relievers is forcing some schools to send students home or close entirely.
Last week, Timaru South School was forced to skip a day due to staff illness and a lack of relieving teachers.
And it was not alone - earlier that same week Whangarei Boys' High School asked its Year 11 students work from home.
Principal of the Lemonwood Grove primary school in Rolleston Blair Dravitsky said qualified relievers were a hot commodity.
"We had a reliever today telling me that there was 40 jobs last Monday morning that were unallocated to anybody. Her radius is only five [kilometres] in each direction from her house."
Principal of North Canterbury's Rangiora High School Bruce Kearney. Photo: SUPPLIED
Principal of North Canterbury's Rangiora High School Bruce Kearney was also having trouble finding relievers.
"You know, on any given day we could have anything from 10 to 30 staff away. Some of those staff are on [professional development] and some of them are doing trips, but, you know, if we have 30 staff away it becomes quite difficult to find relief teachers."
Principals Federation president Leanne Otene said drastic actions like sending students home or closing the school were a last resort.
"They would have wanted to keep the school open. They would have wanted to make sure that students were getting educated and they were having their classes," Otene said.
"The mere fact that they had to roster children home or close the school suggests that they had got to the point of exhausting all of the options open to them."
Post-Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie. Photo: Supplied
Post-Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie said that pressure was being felt across the country.
"We don't have enough teachers. We don't have enough relievers," he said. "There's just not enough to cover the absences, and the absences have been significant. There's been a significant increase in the amount of sick days teachers are taking."
As a principal, Kearney said he was feeling pressure to keep attendance up.
"Currently the associate minister of education is talking about increasing attendance," he said. "Part of that is kind of like removing that whole idea of 'when you're sick, stay at home'. So there's a push to come to school unless you're really unwell."
Blair Dravitsky expected his school's attendance numbers to take a hit, with kids taking longer to recover from sickness than in previous years.
"Instead of being away for one day, which has previously been quite common in the Term 3 winter period, they're gone two, three, four days," he explained. "I know my own daughter was away for a whole week because she just couldn't shake it."
Principals Federation President Leanne Otene. Photo: Supplied
Otene said improving attendance was a high priority, but it should not come at the expense of students' health.
"What's critical to understand is that we really do want kids to be at school when they are well. What is occurring now is we've got winter illnesses, we're putting pressure on parents to send their kids to school. We've been told that if kids have got a sniffly nose, well they still need to go to school."
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Education said guidance was available for schools to help them understand when a sick child should stay home. They said the ministry was continuing to address the workforce shortage through a range of initiatives.
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