Tamatea High School Principal, Robin Fabish.
This week the Tamatea High School Board of Trustees made the decision to sign up for the governments new ‘Donations Scheme’ which will mean that students will not be charged a donation to attend Tamatea High School in 2020.
The new donations scheme will see the Ministry of Education pay the Tamatea High $150 per student instead of the school charging its normal $80 donation plus course costs. The scheme is only for schools which are decile 1 to 7 and is designed to take the pressure off families struggling to pay donations and course fees. It also means that Tamatea High will have certainty for budgeting in 2020.
“Normally, we get $10 thousand in donations and a little bit to cover course costs for subjects like cooking and woodwork. Under the Government’s new process, we will get around $45 thousand which we will use for our regular programmes but also for resources like computers, technology and robotics that support our future focused learning programme.” Said Tamatea High School Principal, Robin Fabish.
The donations scheme will still allow schools to charge for overnight trips, camps and sports teams, but these will be voluntary and Tamatea High would cover the cost for those who cannot afford to themselves.
Mr Fabish said “It’s not so different to what we’ve been doing for some time. If a family is struggling to put funds together for a trip to Victoria University, we cover it out of our equity fund. We want to support our students to have the experiences that will ensure they are set up for their future once they have left school.”
Families will still be expected to pay for things like stationery, school uniform and the school ball but compulsory workbooks like the popular Scipads or compulsory computer programmes like Education Perfect will need to be paid for by the school.
Mr Fabish added “When we have trips to the museum, aquarium and EIT there will be no more scrambling around trying to find a $2 coin! It’ll all be covered. One less stress for us to focus on!”
