Changing the number of proprietor's appointees
Te panoni i te maha o ngā tāngata ka kopoua e te rangatiraopen_in_new
Changing the number of proprietor's appointees on your board is a process that involves altering your board's constitution.
Section 121 of the Education and Training Actopen_in_new sets out the process to do this, but we're unpacking it in this article.
Unless the proprietor has approved an alternative constitution, a standard state-integrated school board membership has four proprietor appointees.
Why would the proprietor change the number of appointees on a board?
There are various reasons why a proprietor may change the number of proprietor appointees on a board.
In small schools with only a few staff and students, they may find it difficult to fill all the positions.
A school may have grown considerably, and the proprietor may need to increase the number of appointees to reflect the community's size better.
A board may have asked the proprietor to change the number of proprietor appointees to allow them to co-opt members to improve the board's diversity or missing expertise in areas such as finance.
Whatever the reason, the proprietor can change the number of proprietor positions on your board to no fewer than one and no more than four.
The only exception is when the Ministry of Education puts a statutory intervention in place and appoints a commissioner to replace the board in full.
How does the proprietor make the changes?
The proprietor needs to provide written notice to the board of their consent to either reduce or increase the number of proprietor appointees they are entitled to appoint.
The written notice must also state when the change will take effect, either on a specific date or when a specific event happens (whichever is earlier).
For example, a proprietor may consent to reduce the number of appointees once the current position holder's term of office ends.
Their written notice might say something like this:
The proprietor of [school name] consents to reduce the number of proprietor appointees to its board from four to three. This reduction will occur on [insert date] when [appointee name's] term of office ends or at an earlier date if [appointee name] resigns from their position.
What happens next?
Once your board has received written notice from the proprietor to alter your constitution, you need to:
- Record the notice and changes to your constitution in your board meeting minutes
- Update your board member registeropen_in_new and complete the School Board Updatesopen_in_new form
- Advise your school community of the changes
- Email the Ministry of Education and GovHub to notify us of the changes using this suggested wording:
The [insert school name] board [insert school profile number] received written notice from our proprietor on [insert date] to alter the number of proprietor appointees on the board to [insert number], effective from [insert date].
Questions your board could ask
- Have we recorded the notice from the proprietor and the change in our constitution in our minutes?
- Have we notified the Ministry of Education and GovHub of our changes?
- Have we advised our school community of the change?
- Have we updated our board member registeropen_in_new and School Board Updatesopen_in_new form?
Templates, resources, and references
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Links from us
The Ministry of Education
Education and Training Act 2020