BOT Election 2025

Thursday, 1st May 2025 at 12:25pm

BoT - Invitation to stand for election 2025

Are you interested in becoming involved in the Green Bay High School Board? School board elections are approaching in September and the school is putting out a call to parents and community members to consider standing for election.

Green Bay High School's current board wants to help make sure that the new board consists of a positive group of people, representing all parts of our diverse community, who are prepared to contribute time and energy on behalf of the entire school

What is the role of the school board? School boards are responsible for governance. Governance means setting the school’s vision and strategy, developing policies, setting budgets and making some of the big decisions. In New Zealand the board doesn’t get involved in details of school management – that is the job of the educational experts including the Principal, who is employed by the Board, the Senior Leadership Team and all the staff.

Who is on the school board? Members include volunteer trustees from the community, one staff trustee, one student trustee and the principal.

We believe it’s also ideal to have range of skills and experience within the group - for example, health and safety, law, finance, managing people, communications and importantly, understanding our school’s diverse communities.

As the board is appointed by the community through elections, we expect that some members from the current board will remain and that there will be some new members.

What is the time commitment? The time involved can vary but based on how the board currently runs, meetings held most months take around two hours, with some time required to pre-read the board pack.

Trustees also get involved in board work such as reviewing the monthly accounts, health and safety reviews, working through property decisions, supporting communications, or being involved in disciplinary processes when this is required.

Green Bay High School’s board has excellent systems in place and support within the school particularly around finance, health and safety and board administration, and the outgoing board will help ensure that any new board members have everything they need to hit the ground running.

What are the benefits of being on the board? Our current members are motivated by the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of the school helping to shape its future. They also say that contributing their time, effort and expertise on a school board where you are part of a group working together for the school in your community, is a rewarding and a positive experience.

I’m interested, what are the next steps? With more than four months to go until elections, the board would like to invite anyone that is interested to get in touch.

You can contact an existing board member, or reach out to the board secretary Jackie Rzepka, through the board email address: [email protected] to ask questions about how the current board works, to find out more about the process, and to understand if this is something that might be for you.

As elections get closer the school will also organise an information session, and work through the whanau and migrant hui to talk with prospective candidates. We’ll let you know details of those through the school newsletter closer to the time.

If you decide to stand for election, you will be asked to complete a short candidate statement and provide a photo.

We also recommend looking at the School Board Elections website for information.

Thanks for giving it some thought and we hope to hear from you soon.

The Board of Trustees Green Bay High School