Amendments

Amendments to a school's enrolment scheme may become necessary for a variety of reasons eg

• the development of a new housing area, for which the school is reasonably convenient;
• unforeseen roll growth in the area of reasonable convenience;
• shifting school population patterns.

Any of these may require an amendment to the definition of "reasonably convenient" in the scheme.

Section 11M(4) states that the process for amending a scheme is the same as that for developing the original scheme, ie

• the Secretary must first authorise the board to begin developing an amendment (11H(1) and (2));
• the board must consult with the persons and organisations described in Section 11H(3), and, as appropriate, 11H(4);
• the proposed amendment must be approved by the Secretary under Section 11I;
• once approved by the Secretary, the amendment must be adopted by the board as soon as practicable;
• the board must give notice of its adoption of the amendment, under Section 11J(1);
• the commencement of the amendment is governed by Section 11K.

Minor Amendments

Section 11MA provides for a modified procedure if the amendment is minor in nature. In this case, provided that the Secretary has confirmed in writing that the amendment is indeed minor, the board need only notify the public of the proposed amendment by notice in a daily or community newspaper circulating in the area served by the school. When submitting the amendment to the Secretary for approval, the board must give details of any comments or questions it has received about the proposed amendment. Once approval has been given, the amendment can be adopted by the board, provided that one month has passed since the date of the newspaper notice.

Unless special circumstances exist (eg where there is likely to be a considerable degree of public interest or a large number of families are likely to be affected by the proposed change), the Secretary would consider a proposed amendment as a minor one in the following situations:

• where a school with an enrolment scheme is seeking to amend its scheme simply to include the criteria for enrolment in a newly approved special programme;
• where there is a new housing development just outside the area of "reasonable convenience" (if the scheme uses geographical criteria) and this could be included within the definition of reasonable convenience without any likely impact on the maximum roll and/or capacity of the school;
• where previous ease of access to a school has been seriously affected by a roading development eg a new arterial route might have cut across an existing street, creating in effect two no exit streets, causing students on the wrong side of the new road a significantly increased journey to get to the school which was previously reasonably convenient for them;
• changes to public or Ministry transport provision;
• where the Ministry accepts that the proposed amendment is simply a wording change, designed to give greater clarity of meaning, rather than creating a substantive change to the intent of the scheme.