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Poverty takes toll on schools BY SUE NEWMAN
SUE.N@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Ashburton teachers are providing food, clothing and hot showers for a growing number of school children, an Ashburton principal says. Allenton School principal Graham Smith said schools were no longer just about teaching, they had become the only social agency left in the game. “Now there seems to be a greater group rolling into schools who have greater needs. “There isn’t a school in Ashburton that doesn’t have children it looks after. There are poverty and food issues that every school in our area is dealing with,” he said. In Allenton a church group and the local supermarket were providing lunches and the school was dipping into its own resources to meet food and clothing needs, Mr Smith said. “The majority of our parents are caring but there are families where the best meal is a pie. These children come to school and rubbish food is what they like and know. They don’t like healthy food.” The school tried to maintain a stock of second-hand uniforms that could be given to children in need, but this was now exhausted, Mr Smith said. “But it’s more than uniforms we need. It’s the raincoats, the shoes, the warm jackets and adequate food.”
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We’re now the last port of call as a social agency
Most parents did the best they could by their children, but there was a growing group that simply failed to provide any level of care, he said. “You can’t blame the children for their parents. You deal with the kids because their opportunities are just not there, they’re not ready to learn because they’re starving and the schools wear the consequences. We’re now the last port of call as a social agency.” Fruit Fund organiser Deirdre Moses said Ashburton people were naïve if they believed every child in the district went to school appropriately dressed and with a healthy lunch. Using her own resources along with donations of food she takes fruit baskets into preschools and some schools and said she regularly hears stories of children who are hungry and who have inadequate clothing. “It’s not just a one-off. People need to know that kids are turning up at school with only a packet of two minute noodles or a wee packet of crackers and cheese spread for the day.”
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