Former Principal Karen Morgan on the public vs private school debate

Former Principal of Taita College Karen Morgan joins Nick on the show to discuss the benefits of public school. 

Karen has experience working in multiple public schools, she tells Nick about the benefits of sending your children to public school, and what makes the education work for the child.

Is it the fact it's private/public, the teachers or something else?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Karen Morgan is the former Hut City councilor, as I said,
and a former principal. She was Tighter College's first female
principal and she's joining us now.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Good morning, Karen, Good morning Matt. How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm doing great? Thank you tell me your children? Would
you send them to a private or public even if
you could afford to send them to private? You know
what I mean? So it was not down the money.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
Let me start by saying that I do believe every
school wants the best outcomes for students, and if students
are at the heart of their decisions, it's going to
be a fantastic school no matter what. But I have
to say for me, I would absolutely, without a doubt,
every single day state categorically you should be supporting your
local school.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Because they are absolutely working so hard.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
They have children's and family and fun best interest at heart,
and it's about holistic success, you know, building a community, socialization, connections,
and localized curriculum.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Now I'm going to throw one at you.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Our producer Grace went to a public school in her
primary school, went to public school to start with, and
then got pulled out and went to private She believes
that she would not be sitting opposite me, not be
doing this job, and not have a degree if she
didn't go to a private secondary school. What do you
say to her, Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
That's her journey, And I think everyone's got a different journey.
But you know, all I can say is I've worked
at a number of schools throughout New Zealand and I
don't know one school in the country who isn't working
so hard all of the staff, the leadership to do
the very best and give everyone a meaningful pathway. And
I think the difference there is that what's so critical

(02:02):
I think for everyone's holistic success is building those key
relationships and knowing the students. And I can just say
from my experience, what we find fundamentally important is to
connect with each student so that we can help encourage
them on their pathway that's best for them, you know,
whether that's in whatever direction that takes, vocational, academic, and

(02:25):
all sorts of different areas, But it's about knowing the kids.
And I go back to that it takes a village
to raise a child, you know, and it really does.
It's about connections on all sorts of levels and in
a local community.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
You really get that.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Can I give you another scenario? Now you were deputy
principal at Wellington Girls. Right now, that's as close as
to a private I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong.
Wellington Boys and Wenington Girls are as close to a
private school as you really can get. Compare a student
a third format, right that was a little bit wayward.

(03:00):
A young girl that's just a little bit wayward, hasn't
got really just hasn't got what she wants to do
in her life. And she's a bit wayward going to
tight to college or going to Wellington Girls. How much
more chance has she got at Wellington Girls?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Well? You really know how to hit those questions, don't
you know? I mean I think once again, look, every
every experience is different.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
But I want to throw something back at you, and
this is what I think our listeners need to take.
You know, real get a sense of is that a
school is there to do everything they can and wrap
around those students, you know, and they have a lot
of great program systems. It's you know, those those different links.
But what's critical and often gets missed sometimes is how

(03:42):
valuable is the family support is and what does that
look like? And you know, if you've got a child
who has to travel two hours on a bus, two
hours on a train to get to that school, that's
that's quite a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I really haven't asked my question though, Karen, because you know,
I'm a good maide at Glenn Denham's right. I love
him to death. I think he's a really good guy,
and I know he's doing a one wonderful job in
education full stop. Forget out where he's from. He always
talks about the one in a million. You know what
he means by that.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
A million? Making it what out of.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Wherever they are, and that makes it. And he always
feels with the education, the more education they have, the
more chance they have of being that one in a million.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
You need to define success, so you know, and I
think a lot of people still think success is just
about academic success, but it isn't.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Actually, it's way more than that.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
It's about that socialization, it's about cultural it's about sporting,
and when you can offer a child all of those
sorts of things in a well rounded way, you know
they're going to be successful.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
And everyone's different. What you might be talking about is
do we still have the Big Boys Network? Absolutely we do.
You know, do we still have those You know, I'll
get you into this because.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
I know you, I know your family, and that's kind
of stand indictment. Actually you know the state of the nation,
because that still is alive and well.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
But what I would say is those students get an
equal opportunity.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
And you know, I can only speak from my experience
and the staff and the people that I've worked with,
knowing that they would do everything to give every student
the best opportunity, whether you're at Wellington Girls or whether
you're at Tider College.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
You know, it's.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
About knowing your kids, knowing your family, and also working
hard to do all you can to support their needs
and what they want and how you wrap around them.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
You still really haven't given me a clear defining answer
whether you've got a better chance if you're on the
prolifery at a at a well resourced school to a
non well resourced school, public or private.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well, I think there's a lot.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
I don't know if you can just put a clean
answer on it, because when you've been on education, it's
just not black and white.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
There's so many layers.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Because you could talk about how many kids are in
the class, you know, what does that look like?

Speaker 3 (06:09):
And it you know, certain schools you'll have bigger classes.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
But even in a public school like Title College where
I was, you know, we made an absolute effort to
keep the classes small so that we could absolutely know
those students and then look at our curriculum, plan our curriculum,
change our curriculum.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
So you know, I don't think you're going to get
an answer out.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Of me of what's better and what's worse. All I
know is that for me, having an opportunity to support locally,
I think is fundamentally important.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Hard to disagree with that, hard to disagree with that.
Thank you, Careen, Really appreciate it, really appreciate you got sorry.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
I'm just going to say, because you know, things like
also linking to your businesses.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
It's linking those.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Little things like work experiences, apprenticeships and businesses. Knowing the
families and often kids will stay in their environment. They
might go away for a while, they might go off
and do other things.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
But it is about opportunities. But when you're all working
together in.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
A connected way and moving away from that competitive site
sort of competitive model.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
I think you can do amazing things.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
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