Photo: Ponsonby Community Preschool/Facebook
Parents are threatening to remove their children from Ponsonby's community preschool after a fiery feud with upper management.
A statement to RNZ, which said it represented the views of the preschool's parent community, said parents were unhappy long-time staff had been "driven away" from the Auckland preschool.
This came after the board announced its opening hours would be extended from 8.30am-4pm to 8am-5.30pm.
The statement said 40 percent of the preschool's staff were leaving, and they believed the remaining staff were likely to follow suit.
"The teachers are truly an extension of our family and we are shocked they are being so mistreated given their incredible love they show towards our children, daily."
According to the statement, those whose children had more than two months left before starting school, about 90 percent of enrolled children, had indicated they would withdraw their children if more staff left.
"We are prepared to leave the preschool if they lose their amazing teaching staff, as their presence is vital to our children's education and development during their formative years."
Parents said they made several attempts to reach a "mutual resolution" with the preschool's board, to no avail.
"We have been met with dismissive responses and a lack of acknowledgement of our communications. This has been incredibly frustrating and disheartening for both the teachers and the families."
RNZ has seen emails from parents to the board between 9 July and 2 August, detailing their concerns, which the board responded to.
Ponsonby Community Centre runs the preschool. Its chair Nick Davies said parents initially had positive reactions to the proposed increase in operating hours.
"When we asked parents via email, 12 out of 16 responses were favourable to extended hours.
"We are extremely saddened that this issue has escalated in this way, and we weren't expecting or prepared for the reaction that this small change in hours has engendered from our staff and family communities."
He said a parent representative on the board provided feedback before they informed all parents at the preschool they would be extending their hours on 12 July.
But in the statement, parents said their support for extended hours was before they were aware the preschool's staff would leave.
"Any parent feedback that might have appeared to support the changes based on the brief email we received from the Centre Manager is not evidence of genuine support. This is because we were not provided with the full context and the potential impacts that these changes would have."
Davies said the preschool had seen declining enrolments since 2023 and their new hours are in line with daycare centres across the country.
"Our preschool needs to be open when demand is strongest to avoid falling enrolments as parents choose other facilities that cater to full-time working hours."
He said the community centre was an Auckland Council-supported organisation, and they received an annual grant to run community programmes.
"Under our management agreement, we are required to be as inclusive as possible to our wider community, enabling 'fair, easy, and affordable access' to all activities we run, including the preschool, and catering to the diversity of those who live in Ponsonby and surrounding suburbs."
He said the decision was about putting the needs of a larger number of families in the community first.
"We cannot only cater to families that need no more than 6.5 hours of care a day. We need to cater to all configurations of family, especially in the current cost-of-living crisis, where many families have both caregivers working full-time to afford life."
"Many families in our area can't use the preschool because the hours are restrictive and don't reflect the real world."
He said their current ratio of one staff member to five children was unsustainable.
"A group of parents are unhappy with the extended hours, and we understand why. Our children love coming to our preschool, and in its current position, there are so few children that theirs are getting 1:5 teaching coverage, which is desirable."
He acknowledged two staff members had recently resigned and another staff member had requested voluntary redundancy.
"Due the circulation of significant misinformation, we were not able to complete our discussions around rosters. We have told all our staff that we don't want them to go and intended to take them on the journey with us, but if they decide to leave, we support their personal decision.
He said the change in operating hours would change staff working schedules.
"There will be some minimal shift work, with some staff starting and leaving a little earlier, and others starting and leaving a little later. We are happy to discuss with our staff what hours are most suitable for them."
The board had agreed to meet with parents on 7 August.
Last week, parents told RNZ the preschool agreed to delay the implementation of extended hours. But they said this was too little too late.
"We've lost trust in the board regardless and a lot of the damage is irreversible, especially that teachers are leaving.
The parent group made a complaint to the Ministry of Education and said they would consider taking legal action.