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The Education Minister has issued a plea for all Auckland parents to send their children back to school after some principals reported only a third of students showing up today.
Around 250,000 children were expected to return this morning, but many stayed away amid ongoing safety concerns about Covid-19.
At Sutton Park school in Māngere East, principal Fa'atili Iosua Esera said there was some anxiety in the community, with Covid-19 having been in South Auckland.
Around a third of Sutton Park students turned up today - Esera said that was an improvement on the last lockdown, when only 10 percent of kids were back at Level 2.
"So compared to this time up to 30 percent, happy with that - and maybe more turn up tomorrow."
The school has made masks mandatory - each students is given three masks each day; one for inside, one for outside and one for taking home and coming back.
"Whether you're five years old, or up to 13-years-old, you have to wear a mask," Esera said.
Sutton Park wasn't the only school to report significant absences - Rowandale School in Manurewa only had half their roll turn up.
At Fruitvale Primary in New Lynn there were around a quarter of students away - principal Donal McLean said some parents were more nervous than last time lockdown lifted.
"I have had enquiries from parents who I wouldn't have thought would enquire because they would take the science based [approach], so that sort of alerts me to the fact that we might get fewer than last time."
He is encouraging mask use during school drop-offs and pick-ups and parents spoken to by Checkpoint said they had practised mask wearing with their children during trips to the dairy to try and normalise it.
McLean said when Covid first hit there was a lot of mystery around mask-use - but the science had changed and New Zealanders needed to as well.
"A lot of people thought face masks weren't effective, that they had to be a certain type of face mask, now it's very clear that face masks - it seems to me - will make a difference to the health of the community."