Schools won't be able to hold teacher-only days during term time and parents of students absent for 15 days could be prosecuted, Associate Education Minister David Seymour has announced in a new truancy crackdown.

Schools must have a stepped attendance response (STAR) plan in place by the beginning of the 2026 school year.

Seymour set out an example:

Five days absent: School contacts parents/guardians to determine a reason and set expectations

10 days absent: School leaders meet with parents/guardians and student to develop a plan to address barriers to attendance and "the obligation goes onto services such as attendance, Oranga Tamariki and the local police"

15 days absent: Ministry takes over the response, including possible prosecution of parents

Each school would also be asked to share attendance information with Oranga Tamariki, police, and MSD, he said.

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[–] deadbeef79000 16 points 2 months ago

Oh good, another "crackdown" on {insert vulnerable segment of society here}

Heaven forbid we "crackdown" on the root causes of that vulnerability.

[–] eagleeyedtiger 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hate is probably too strong a word, but man do I intensely dislike David Seymour.

Him and his ilk were probably calling the Labour government a nanny state - they seem to really love regulation now though

[–] Viper_NZ 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The hypocrisy is astounding.

He's on a mission to reduce bureaucracy and waste, so this government make jobseekers reapply for the benefit every 6 months.

Government shouldn't tell parents how to raise their kids, so they prevent parents from making decisions around whether their kid needs a mobile.

[–] deadbeef79000 7 points 2 months ago

That's because it's "little government for the rich" and "big government for the poors".

Substitute any "in group" and "out group" respectively.

[–] absGeekNZ 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There is also the growing awareness, that you shouldn't send sick kids to school.

My 8yo had a flu, was off school for 8 days until he felt well enough. That was one incident....if you have a one bad sickness and a couple of minor ones throughout the term, you are going to hit your 15 days pretty quickly.

He actually went back to school a day earlier than I would have liked, because he was missing his friends; and he was mostly better.

Some families are sending their sick kids to school; they simply cannot afford to miss work. This causes issues for others. This happens every year, worst in winter.

Maybe if we encouraged kids to be at school, making it easy to get there and feeding the ones who don't have enough food....supporting the families in need. Na, lets just punish our way out of the problems. NB the beatings will continue until morale improves.

[–] Dave 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I really like the idea from the other article I posted in my comment where a school had people who would work with the families to help remove barriers to getting kids to school. Instead of using a stick, they worked with the families to increase attendance over time with reasonable and practical help.

The proposed plan here is more like sending the parents to the principal's office, and if that doesn't work then prosecuting them. It's an approach that starts out assuming the families are evil and the government's job is to punish the evil people.

[–] Venator 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's an approach that starts out assuming the families are evil and the government's job is to punish the evil people.

Not to mention it doesn't help the child at all...

[–] Dave 6 points 2 months ago

Oh did you think that was the aim?

[–] Dave 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Also see this previous article from May about attendance. Snippets:

[regarding attendance] The rates have dropped precipitously in the years since Covid-19, following years of a much gentler, but still steady, decline.

But although New Zealand's overall rates are worse than countries with similar education systems, they fit a universal pattern of falling attendance in classrooms around the world.

[school principal talking about attendance support programme they have] But where the government has given with one hand, it's taken with the other.

"The other thing that helped us get kids to school was the free transport for under-12s and, of course, that's gone," she says.

"I'm not being political, but if we're cutting funding to things that get our students to school to save money for tax benefits, for our families who are really struggling with poverty, I'm sure that the tax benefit they're going to get is not going to equal what they would have to pay for transport and lunch."

[–] Rangelus 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The dumbest thing about changing teacher only days, is they are not counted in then mandatory number of days a school is open for. All this change will do is make them close earlier, so the kids will still be off school and parents will still need to make arrangements.

It's fucking stupid.

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 3 points 2 months ago

Like a whole lot of the decisions of this government, its campaigning. Political theatre to play up fears & misconceptions of a segment of voters.