| 117 Opunake High School: Structa COMMUNITY Fresh paint since 1956 Commercial | Industrial | Residential Decades of experience, with the highest level of workmanship makes Grays Painting Contractors the company for your next project. 0800 127 246 • admin.hawera@graypainters.co.nz www.graypainters.co.nz Call Us 06 765 5336 Email info@savvygas.co.nz www.savvygas.co.nz PLUMBING • GAS FITTING • DRAINAGE • HOME HEATING Any job, we will get it done on time in budget OUR SERVICES SERVICING STRATFORD, NEW PLYMOUTH AND TARANAKI WIDE PLUMBING AND DRAINAGE SAVVYGAS The heat is on ! Representing Excellence Master Plumbers 100% LOCALLY OWNED & OPERATED For all your Electrical, Solar & Air Conditioning designs, installations, Inspections & Maintenance, General Electrical Servicing & Maintenance, TV, Aerial Installations & Electronic repairs & Maintenance & Testing & Tagging on & off site. ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC SERVICES & REPAIRS “YOUR ONE STOP SERVICES SHOP” tele: (06) 757 5707 web: www.tel.org.nz ‘PROUD TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH STRUCTA & OPUNAKE HIGH SCHOOL’ T T Sue Russell Long wait finally over A major overhaul and rebuild to the school’s technical block is finally underway. When you have been fighting the good fight with the powers that be to rectify poor decisions made 15plus years ago that have negatively impacted students, teachers and community alike, a result is certainly cause for celebration. Such is the case at Opunake High School. A major overhaul and rebuild to the school’s technical block, that principal Andrea Hooper says should have been done long ago, is finally underway, and while causing disruption to teaching, she says this disruption is welcome, given what the work represents. “We’re finally having this building repaired and brought up to standard. When the ministry agreed the work must be undertaken and apportioned the funding to see it done, it was a victory to some amazing people who just never gave up on the school. That’s something that to us all means a great deal,” Andrea says. Two names in particular stand-out, Lloyd Morgan and Liz Gasson, board members, who stoically kept the issue alive with the Ministry, and who were simply relentless in their pursuit of having the wrong decisions all those years ago, finally laid to rest. “You know you find often in these smaller communities, there’s such a strong connection for so many to the school,” says Andrea. “We are a true whanau community school at our heart, and everything we care about and do is put through the lens of ‘is this good for our students?’. If the answer is yes, then we just go ahead and do it and we don’t give up.” The project involves almost a total rebuild of the massive block, which is home to the school’s engineering tech facilities, along with the library, hospitality, art rooms and generic classrooms. Andrea says the reason this project took so long before the ministry signed off the work and invested over $4million of their own property funds is, as can happen with staff turnover, the institutional memory and commitment to a project is threatened. “There just were not the people in the ministry’s property division, who travelled the journey the whole time since the building was first recognised as leaky and substandard, so it was frustrating for our school. Having a trailblazing board involved in the project from the very start for us was pivotal in getting it over the line.” She says the staff working in the tech department were “absolutely brilliant” when it came to coping with the disruption and the builders, Structa, have led the rebuild with professional capability second-to-none. “The project is supposed to be completed in July and we can’t wait.”
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