Education Minister Jan Tinetti said the government had no plans to reduce the boarding schools' funding or close them. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Enrolments have doubled at the country's three boarding schools for disabled children while the government decides their future.
The Education Ministry is paying the residential special schools $11.5 million for a notional combined roll of 84 children this year, and said they had 44 enrolments between them at the middle of June.
That was up from 23 students in July last year, when the ministry also funded the schools for 84 children.
The schools told RNZ more students were due next term, which would bring them close to their maximum rolls.
The growth comes nearly a year after the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommended the government shut the schools and direct their funding to community-based support.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti told RNZ she expected Education Ministry advice on the UN report and the schools soon.
She said the government had no plans to reduce their funding or close them.
Halswell principal Janine Harrington said the schools had been waiting for a decision on their future since last year.
"We were told that the ministry needed to provide information to the minister and we should know whether we were going to close by December.
"Then it was January, then it was April and at this point we still haven't heard if these three residential special schools will be open or shut."
Harrington attributed her school's rising roll to a good relationship with the local Ministry of Education office, high demand from local schools, and ensuring teachers and families understood Halswell was still open and how it operated.
But she said enrolments could be higher.
"On the face of it, it could be argued that it looks as though students are being kept out of residential schools by the application and enrolment process being overly difficult and there are certainly some people in the community who promote an ideology that every student should be mainstreamed and therefore specialist schools and residential schools shouldn't exist.
"It's a crying shame that we have empty beds and we can't help more rangitahi."
Harrington said the schools were no longer long-term destinations but short-term interventions that helped children gain the skills they needed to return successfully to a mainstream school.
She said the UK and US closed state residential special schools several years ago, only to reopen them as private institutions because there was still a need for them.
Westbridge principal David Bagwell said its enrolments reached a low of three at the start of the year, but the school now had 11 students with seven more approved to enrol next term.
"By mid-term three we'll be up to 18, which is as big as we've ever been in my time here," he said.
However, Bagwell said the school's future was still uncertain.
"Things feel in limbo. The school feels great, you know we've got growing numbers and so the political backdrop feels an anomaly to that.
"I would feel differently if we had much lower numbers but that's not the case. I guess it's a wait-and-see and... I think perhaps the fact that it's an election year is playing into the delaying of that decision, who knows, but we've heard nothing."
Bagwell said the ministry's notional roll for the school of 32 was not realistic and the level of funding it received was sufficient for 24 students at most.
Salisbury School's board of trustees chair Janet Kelly said enrolments were growing and the school was confident it would reach its cap of 20 students in term three.
"I think the students have always been there. I think it's taken time for people to understand what the criteria are and how it works.
"We've got a high level of confidence in the school's future because we believe we do fulfill a really important role within the sector and we contribute a lot positively to learning support and the education sector as a whole."
IHC inclusive education consultant Trish Grant said the organisation had mixed views on the schools.
"We recognise for many families because of the difficult times they've had in accessing the right support at home in their own communities this seems like an attractive option.
"But there are some worrying aspects of these schools that IHC is concerned about [such as] the high rates of restraint that appear to be happening."
However, Bagwell said his school had eliminated physical restraint.
"There have been no physical restraints in the school throughout 2022 or this year," he said.
Grant said while the government was strengthening community options it should put more standards and controls around the schools.
"Disabled children in Oranga Tamariki care for example have care standards. We think that would be a good idea for these schools. And also accessible complaints mechanisms."
Grant said the money spent on residential schools would go further if it was spent on community-based support.
Last year, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said it was concerned the government continued to fund residential specialist schools for children with disabilities.
It recommended the government "withdraw the proposal to change entry requirements for enrolment in residential specialist schools and redirect funding and resources into an inclusive education system".
It said the government should "develop a comprehensive de-institutionalisation strategy" and "take measures to cease investment in residential specialist schools for children with disabilities".
The schools' enrolment criteria said the schools were for young people aged 8 to 15 years old, with complex and challenging behaviour, social and/or learning needs that required support at school and local learning support services have been considered or tried but residential special schooling was believed to be the best option.
The schools were not for children who needed an intervention in their home or community such as through the Education Ministry's Intensive Wraparound Service.