JUDY GILL: What “Giving effect to Te Tiriti” means in schools - and how zoning denies parents real choice

What does “giving effect to Te Tiriti” actually mean?

Across New Zealand, schools are declaring that they will “give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

Many parents assume this means teaching New Zealand history or acknowledging Māori culture. In reality, in modern policy language, it means something far more structural.

To “give effect” to Te Tiriti generally means embedding Treaty principles into governance, leadership, and decision-making. It often involves redefining power-sharing arrangements, treating Māori as governance partners, and redesigning institutional systems around Treaty-based frameworks.

This is not merely education. It is a constitutional and governance shift. The idea of “partnership” is modern — not original. New Zealand did not operate as a partnership state for most of its history. The modern concepts of “partnership”, “principles of the Treaty,” and co-governance emerged largely in the 1980s through court decisions and Waitangi Tribunal reports. These ideas are not written into the original 1840 texts.

What is happening now is not preservation of an old system. It is the adoption of a modern constitutional interpretation that remains highly contested within public debate.

Zoning denies parents real choice

This is the crucial issue. School ZONING removes parental choice. Families are legally compelled to send their children to their zoned state school, unless they can afford private or integrated alternatives. In practice, parents now face only four options:

-Accept their ZONED co-governance state school

-Pay for private schooling

-Accept an integrated faith-based school

-Or home schooling.

That is not freedom. That is coercion through zoning.

If schools are fundamentally diverging in governance model, worldview, and constitutional philosophy, then zoning must not be used to trap families into schools they did not choose. Parents must be emancipated from zoning where philosophical divergence exists.

Governance and consultation problems

Many Boards of Trustees have not held public meetings since the 4th November 2025 government announcement of law change, yet declarations have already been issued.

This raises serious questions:

-Were full board meetings held?

-Were votes taken?

-Were parent representatives consulted?

-Were families asked their views?

There appears to be no evidence of meaningful community consultation before these commitments were made. Public schools do not belong to administrators. They belong to families and the public.

Structural failures inside Boards of Trustees

Boards depend almost entirely on unpaid parent volunteers. Many schools struggle to attract candidates. Many elections are uncontested. Some boards cannot fill positions at all.

Where parent governance is weak, real authority naturally shifts to those who are:

-Paid

-Trained

-And present inside the system every day

This means professional education staff increasingly shape governance direction. This is not a criticism of principals and teachers. It is a structural design flaw.

Barriers to access and transparency

In many schools there is:

-No public phone contact for the Board

-No direct public email address

-No transparent route to communicate directly with trustees

Parents are forced to funnel concerns through school offices. There is no assurance concerns reach elected trustees. That is not democratic governance.

Where real power now sits

The speed with which more than a thousand schools issued these declarations matters. It suggests decisions were driven administratively, not democratically. When constitutional-level statements can be issued without visible parental mandate, the governance model no longer matches what parents were told it was.

This is the real issue.

Reform is necessary

If schools are adopting divergent constitutional and governance models, then:

-Parents must be clearly informed

-Zoning must not be used to trap families

-Governance must be transparent

-Community consent must be real

Either parent trustees must be paid and professionalised, or the governance model must be redesigned completely. Public education cannot function long-term without legitimacy.

Parents deserve transparency.

Parents deserve choice.

Parents deserve an education system that does not coerce them through zoning.

Judy Gill is a parent, former teacher, and a staunch advocate for secular education. She has a BA and a Diploma in Teaching