Yipirinya School's future in doubt as enrolments plummet and debts mount
Yipirinya has been embroiled in controversy culminating with the announcement of up to 20 staff redundancies. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
In short:
Just 50 students turned up to class at Yipirinya School in Alice Springs on Thursday, a day after staff were told up to 20 of them would be laid off due to dwindling enrolments.
Also on Thursday, the Northern Territory government released an independent special investigator's report that found former principal Gavin Morris received an $85,000 pay rise, largely based on "student numbers".
What's next?
Current and former staff have expressed concern about the school's ongoing viability in the wake of the job cuts, but the NT government maintains it "will remain open".
The future of an independent Indigenous school in Alice Springs is under a cloud after just 50 students turned up to class on Thursday, down from a peak enrolment of 360 in December last year.
Staff at Yipirinya School were told on Wednesday between 15 and 20 of them would be made redundant after plunging enrolments left the school $3.7 million in debt to the federal government.
Former staff member Rhonda Inkamala, whose grandchildren now attend the school, said it would "not survive without these staff".
"These staff have been employed for many years now, and have been with those children since they started pre-school," she said.
"They've nurtured them … seen them grow."
Rhonda Inkamala says children at the multi-lingual school will struggle to integrate into public schools if Yipirinya closes. (ABC News: Elsie Lange)
Ms Inkamala said the school provided breakfast and a bus service, a lifeline for students who would otherwise struggle to get to school, and parents who can face fines when their children are absent.
"[The students] come to Yipirinya from societies where it's very difficult, no sleep at night, nothing to eat," she said.
"But when they come to school, they don't show that, they are happy to learn."
The school is one of the country's last remaining that teaches in four Aboriginal languages — Central Arrernte, Western Arrernte, Luritja, and Warlpiri — alongside English, and Ms Inkamala said the students "wouldn't fit in" at public school.
"We don't want our children to learn one-way-English, we want our children to learn our language and culture as well," she said.
In a statement on Thursday, a Northern Territory government spokesperson said the school "will remain open".
Ex-principal's pay rise linked to funding
Yipirinya School was placed under statutory management in July to address significant financial issues after former principal Gavin Morris was charged with assaulting students.
Morris was found guilty in the Alice Springs Local Court last month on four counts of aggravated assault — including choking a student, putting another in a chokehold and dragging two students by the ear.
On Thursday, the territory government released an independent special investigator's report commissioned by NT Registrar of Non-Government Schools Tony Considine and handed to the government in December last year.
An investigation concluded Gavin Morris "orchestrated the employment of mothers of children who were enrolled as students as a reward". (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
In the report, investigator George Zapcev said he heard evidence Morris "had a strong focus on attracting funding to the school".
"There was suspicion that while enrolments were high, attendance did not increase and that assessments of student special needs were deliberately biased towards highest need categories in order to attract [a] higher level of funding," it reads.
Mr Zapcev concluded an $85,000 pay rise Morris received last year was based substantially on "the attraction of a significant amount of additional funding".
"There appears to be no association with any demonstrated enhanced student learning but rather just student numbers," he wrote.
Yipirinya's bus service is described as a lifeline for students who would otherwise struggle to get to school. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
Mr Zapcev also found "there was no setting of student/staff ratios by the school to enable effective budget setting and monitoring of salaries".
"Principal orchestrated the employment of mothers of children who were enrolled as students as a reward [and] paid them as teacher assistants while recognising they did not have the skills or experience to perform the required work," he wrote.
In a statement released on Wednesday, current school staff said it was unjust for them and the wider community to now be "paying the price" of previous mistakes.
"After a year that has involved widespread reporting on the actions of former leadership at the school, these current problems stem directly from their failures," they said.
On Thursday, Yipirinya School nurses Elise Daly and Madeleine Fasnacht warned the redundancies would entrench already deep health inequities, saying their roles were "not expendable" and their offices were "full every day for genuine and serious reasons".
"We are not just treating minor ailments — we are tackling the deep-rooted health disparities that exist in this region every single day," they said in a statement.
"Yipirinya School is far from a mainstream school, and the inequalities and health conditions that the students face are profound."
A teacher who has worked at the school for four decades, but asked to remain anonymous, said staff had been coming to work "in fear" of losing their jobs for the past 12 months and called on the territory and federal governments to provide emergency funding.
Nurses at Yipirinya say their offices are are "full every day". (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
"I fear that we might be [made] redundant, the teachers who have worked there for a long time," she said.
"We're there for the kids, to educate our kids, to make them feel safe, to encourage them.
"It's for the kids from town camps who are living in poverty, in hardship, and they come to school every day because they love Yipirinya."
Morris was contacted for comment.
Funding 'sufficient' for enrolments
In a statement released on Thursday, an NT government spokesperson said more than 360 students were enrolled at Yipirinya in December last year, with 16 teaching staff and 92 non-teaching staff.
By August, they said enrolments had fallen to 207 students and on Thursday, just 50 students were in attendance.
Registrar Tony Considine, from the NT Department of Education, told the ABC the school's funding was sufficient "for the numbers of students that are there".
Tony Considine says fewer students enrolled at the school means less funding. (ABC News: Tristan Hooft)
"Non-government schools are funded based on the number of students," he said
"So it's very logical to assume if you've got less students, that you require less people to run the school."
Independent Education Union branch secretary Terry Burke said the redundancies were expected to target non-teaching staff and while he shared concerns about Yipirinya's finances, he wanted to see the school "prosper".
"The position is that the school is unable to sustain its current workforce," he said.
"More troubling, even than that, is there is a requirement to repay a significant sum of over funding back to the federal government."
The Independent Education Union says the funding issues mean "the school is unable to sustain its current workforce". (ABC Alice Springs: Charmayne Allison)
Federal MP Marion Scrymgour urged the territory government and statutory manager Stuart Reid to resolve the school's issues without cutting jobs.
"Watching the damage caused to the school by the former principal has been deeply sad to many in our community," she said.
Education Minister Jo Hersey declined to comment when contacted on Thursday.