Julia Davidson: Wellington Girls' College principal on the school closing because of potential quake risk

A Wellington high school has been forced to close after a shock finding revealed 13 classrooms are earthquake prone.

Wellington Girls' College claims the Ministry of Education never informed them the Brook block only met 15 percent of earthquake standards.

It's now having to roster students to work from home, while an alternative campus is organised.

Principal Julia Davidson says the school can legally continue using the building, but it isn't comfortable taking the risk.

"Sure, the seismic risk might be low but if that was to happen - the consequences of that would be severe."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nine two nine two is the text number. Standard text
fees apply on that. Now one of Wellington's prominent girls
schools has been forced to close a block because it's
earthquake prone. Apparently a building report found that thirteen classrooms
at Wellington Girls College, which hows about three hundred and
eighty students, met only fifteen percent of building standards. The
trouble is the Ministry of Education apparently knew about this

(00:21):
all the way back in twenty twenty, but never told
the school. Julia Davidson is the principal of Wellington Girls,
is with us now. Hey Julia, sure, how are you well?
Thank you? When did you find out?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I found out in April April this year?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, how did you find out?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
We were sent a document, a ministry document that was
basically given some data around the reasons why we should
get a new school built. So it was just the
little graphics documents that showed where our deficiencies were, and
then it looked at each of the blocks and looked
at the five minutes petitions related to them, and we
suddenly saw that it was likely to be under thirty

(01:01):
four percent, which is the magic number for the earthquake
prone and it was like, oh, cracky, what have we
got here? So that's when we started asking some questions.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
And what did they say to you when you ask questions?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
They we asked them if they would get a report
done so that we could confirm actually what the number was.
And it took a little while for that to happen,
and in the end, they didn't do the detailed seismic
assessment that the board asked of them. They did a
lesser version. So the board commissioned its own detailed sizemic
assessment and we got both those reports a bass a

(01:32):
week ago.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Now they say they actually did tell you guys beforehand,
but maybe they just didn't tell you. Does that pass
well sniff test?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't. We have no record of being told that.
They certainly did talk to us about issues in that
block that we're going to need to be addressed in
the next twenty years, and we think that we got
told that in about twenty fourteen, So it was like, yeah,
you know, you've got some stuff that you've got to do.
It'll be the next twenty years. But by then, actually
the block will be demolished anyway, because it was going

(02:02):
to go to make way for the new school. Okay,
so I expect that was that sort of general level conversation,
So it wasn't a.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
The Ministry of Education's head of Property Sam Fowler says
it has been working with the school on seismic problems
since twenty nineteen, which included advice about the Brook block
being earthquake prone. My understanding, he says, is that conversations
we had with the school over that period not just
about Brook but about others too.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Definitely, there were definitely conversations to do with earthquakes, earthquake
primee blocks. So our Tar block in twenty nineteen we
were told was it fifteen percent of new build standards.
They came in, they talked to us, they talked through
the program they were going to implement to make that right,
and it had to be demolished. They had to bring
classrooms on site. It was a really thorough process. There
were fantastic communications all about that. There was I mean

(02:52):
it just NOBE even mentioned it in relation to that.
So it's about the same years apparently the thing has happened.
We were really already did with this other big block
that was having to come down that was pretty important
and was being dealt with plus in with COVID. I
just think it got lost somewhere. He said, Well, then
we knew the language, we knew what that meant. We

(03:14):
would have been equally concerned if we've heard about it
for another block.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
He also says that the building is still safe.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, again, I think this is engineering language. So it's
to do with probability. The probability of there being a
one one thousand year earthquake for the time period that
we have to use that before they start remediation is very,
very low, and both engineer reports engineer's reports say that,
and the board accepts that advice. But there's a separate

(03:45):
part that follows it, which is that sure, the seismic
risk might be low, but if that was to happen,
the consequences of that would be severe. And so the
board is looking at the consequences and saying they're not
prepared to take that no if fearing a step further
and thought about the people in the block.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
I don't under It's not a whole lot.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
By the way, it's just the top two floors.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Julia, thank you. I appreciate a best of luck dealing
with the Ministry of Education. This is the Ministry of Education,
Julia Davidson, the Wellington Girls College principal. For more from
Hither Duplessy Allen Drive listen live to news talks. It'd
be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on
iHeartRadio