Newsletter – August 2012

Muritai School Board of Trustees

Newsletter – August 2012

Earthquake Strengthening Update

As mentioned in our June newsletter, following unsatisfactory results of the structural report commissioned by the Board, emergency strengthening works were undertaken to the main two-story block over the July holidays.  We were fortunate that they were able to be fully completed without any disruption to the classes.  We are pleased to report that we have now received further advice from the independent engineers confirming that as a result of the works completed the building is no longer considered earthquake prone.  We have also had formal confirmation from the Ministry of Education that we have satisfied all statutory requirements regarding the earthquake status of the building.

We have achieved this technical compliance as the building now has a capacity greater than 33% of the seismic strength required for a new building designed to current codes.  It is comforting that the building is in a more stable seismic condition than it was prior to completing these works. However, the Board remains of the opinion that it should be brought up to as near as practicable to 100% of National Building Standard as soon as reasonably possible.  Accordingly engineers are preparing a detailed design plan in order to achieve this. Our Property Committee will work with the engineers and the Ministry to formulate a design which is as cost effective as possible and can be achieved with the minimum possible disruption.  At this stage we expect the works will be tendered at the beginning of term 4 and completed over the Christmas holidays.  We will of course update you as soon as we have more details in this regard.

Unfortunately the Ministry has no separate budget for earthquake strengthening works and the cost of the alterations will come out of the funds allocated to the school every 5 years for upgrading and maintaining our buildings (5YA).  As we are one of the first schools to reach this point, having taken the initiative with respect to strengthening, the Ministry has not yet made a decision on how it will affect future funding. Our expectation is that funds spent in excess of our current entitlement will be deducted from our next allocation due in 2015.

Our current 5YA earmarked the $450,OOO entitlement for classroom renovations, toilet upgrades and a new library, the latter being supplemented by additional funds received from the Ministry for a new classroom as a result of our increased roll and money raised by the community over three successive Eastbourne Carnivals.  We have completed the classroom and toilet renovations however the Ministry will now required us to divert 5YA money earmarked for the library towards the earthquake strengthening. 

This is disappointing as it means for a second time the Ministry of Education has changed our funding allocation with respect to the library mid-project (our initial design had to be abandoned when our 2010 5YA grant was reduced by $150,000). We are hopeful that our revised design will be able to be progressed with some modifications and potentially some alternative sources of funding.  We are in the process of finalising some details in this regard and hope to bring you a progress update shortly.

We are disappointed at the setback but pleased we have been able to quickly address the urgent safety issues faced and ensure our children are educated in the safest possible environment.  If you have any queries or would like to discuss this or any other matter concerning governance of the school please do not hesitate to contact one of the board members whose details are on the Muritai School website.

regards

Muritai School Board of Trustees

If you have any comments or queries or would like to discuss anything further please do not hesitate to contact any of the Board members.  Our contact details are as follows:-

Stuart Stock stu.stock@mac.com  Chairperson

Andrew Bird bird@muritai.school.nz  Principal
Melissa Coton coton@muritai.school.nz  Staff rep
Olivia Paterson oliviapaterson@xtra.co.nz
Craig Griffiths caltgriffiths@xtra.co.nz
Julie Parker wattersparker@yahoo.com
David Griffiths wgtngriffs@xtra.co.nz
Carolyn Patchett cpatchett@yahoo.com