Twelve buildings at Fraser High School are being demolished, relocated to other schools, or moved within the school's campus. Photo: Google Maps
Students at Hamilton's Fraser High School are being taught in the library after the Ministry of Education began demolishing buildings because the school has too much teaching space.
One classroom that was used by the displaced students is also sitting empty in storage, while the ministry decides which school to relocate it to.
A source told RNZ that Year 9 and 10 social studies and maths classes were forced into the library for lessons and the school had become a demolition site as excess buildings were knocked down, moved, or relocated to other schools.
RNZ understands the library has been set up in a makeshift fashion with partitions described as "very shambolic".
The Ministry of Education confirmed students were learning in the library, but said it was only while their new classroom was readied. It was not clear how long this would be.
Twelve buildings in total were being demolished, relocated to other schools, or moved within the decile four school's campus as part of a ministry-led "rationalisation project".
They included a building in good condition containing one classroom that had been removed and left in storage while the ministry decided which school to relocate it to.
Another building with two classrooms had already been delivered to Te Kōwhai School to provide additional capacity where there was immediate roll growth pressure, the ministry said.
The source said the learning centre - which housed special needs students, the support centre and a science block with two classrooms - was all "just smashed up".
Frasernet, where New Zealand's largest Gateway programme was once delivered, had also been demolished.
One student said she was upset at not being able to use the library during lunch time, because it was currently not available to other students.
Ministry of Education infrastructure and digital leader Scott Evans said Fraser High School's roll of 1480 students in March - up from 1339 last March - qualified it for 61 teaching spaces, but it had 81.
Evans said because there was a cost to the school to maintain the surplus buildings the ministry worked with it to reduce the number of teaching spaces to 70 as part of its long-term property plan.
"Across our schools and as part of the school property planning process we consider schools surplus property and whether this should be retained, removed or relocated in consideration of condition and growth.
"This programme of work will help the school focus on maintaining the functional property spaces that they use and consider important, like the Wharepuni which will be relocated from the back of the school to the front of the school."
He said the demolition would be complete by June and included buildings with eight teaching spaces built between 1960 and 1975, which were in poor condition.
Calculating school property
Ministry head of property Sam Fowler said the amount of teaching space allowed was decided using a publicly accessible school property guide calculator.
"This calculator takes into consideration staff and student ratios and assumptions on how much space a student requires for different activities," Fowler said.
"A teaching space can be any space on a school site that is appropriate for learning, and the ministry definition recognises general teaching space, specialist teaching space and gym space.
"How a school's space is used and occupied is determined by the school management and board."
Seven of the 12 buildings were ministry-owned with a residual value of $251,455. One was an unused community building and two were owned by the school board of trustees.
The cost to demolish the nine buildings - which began in early May - was $200,000 and some contained asbestos.
"Some buildings have asbestos containing materials and there is an asbestos management plan in place to ensure these buildings are removed safely," Fowler said.
When asked about students having to learn in the library, Fowler said in order to minimise disruption, when infrastructure projects were performed in operating schools it was common practice to relocate staff and students to alternative space on site.
"School leadership made the decision to relocate students into the library temporarily while a board-led project to relocate and refurbish their classroom gets underway."
In 2010 when current principal Virginia Crawford took over, the school had a roll of 1657 students.
The current roll was expected to increase in the short term but Fowler said the school would retain capacity to accommodate increased student numbers after the works were completed.
At the end of the project, Fraser High would have seven surplus spaces, and the Learning Support unit would operate from Z Block.
Crawford was away last week and Monday and did not respond to questions.
Meanwhile, nine other Hamilton schools have Ministry-led building projects including Forest View School, Rotokauri School, Rototuna Senior School, Cambridge High School, Hillcrest High School, Crawshaw School and Aberdeen Primary and Deanwell School, where another rationalisation project is underway.