New Zealand First deputy leader Tracey Martin has accused Child, Youth and Family of undermining Maori boarding schools by dumping troubled teens on them.
“They need more support than most young people. So just dumping them on a school and saying ‘There you go, have at it,’ is not good enough by the government department, but that is what had happened. Forty percent of the studenst at Hato Petera were children from the Waikato region that had been placed there by CYFS, and then CYFS had walked away,” Ms Martin says.
She says no school should have more than 5 percent of its roll being children with serious problems.