Vaughan Couillault: Secondary Principals Assocation President on staff eating free school lunches, leaving students hungry

Children are allegedly missing out on free school lunches because staff are eating them first. 

A parent of students at Tuakau College says her children have missed out for a month, coming home hungry. The students were also denied access to a phone to request their mother bring them food. 

Associate Education Minister David Seymour says he has asked the Ministry of Education to investigate. 

Secondary Principals Association President Vaughan Couillault tells Heather du Plessis-Allan the lunch program has a level of trust involved due to its scale and that teachers may have misinterpreted how it functions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The kids at a school south of Auckland are allegedly
missing out on free school lunches because the staff and
NI Kingdom beforehand. A parent of students at Tuacar College
says that her kids had come home hungry for a
month because they've been missing out. Secondary Principals Association President
Vaughn Queil is with us. Now, hey, Vaughn, how are
you well? Thank you? Vaughan sounds to me like this

(00:22):
was happening a because the principles admitted he's had to
tell the staff not to take the food.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, it's it's it's a little scandalous as far as
being honest with you. We all know that the Healthy
School Lunch's program is there to put kids and put
food in the hands of kids who who need it.
And sure, if there's something left over and everyone's had
to go with there's a spear rap sitting on the bench.
You know that's better than throwing it in the bin.

(00:48):
But it has to go to the kids first, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Have you ever heard of anything like this before?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
No, so literally this is and you're just inborn right,
You're not You're you are the association president. You will
have heard if this was going.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
On, absolutely, and there's a number of secondary schools, large, small,
or whatever primary schools, you've got these lunches going out on.
It's a logistically massive exercise and there's always surplus left over,
and it's good to roll model eating with students in
your class and all that sort of stuff, not at
the expense of the hungry child sitting in front of you.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
What does this tell us about the way that we
are doing this particular program. I mean, if it's open
to being gamed like this and teachers just nicking off
with the gluten free stuff, first, there's a problem, isn't there.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, that's if it's happening. So that the truth is
often somewhere in the middle between maybe your side of
the story and these and so I'd want a little
bit more information before I was going to cast judgment
on them. However, the intent of the program, it's certainly
high trust, but it sort of needs to be because
it's logistically huge, right, getting that many lunches into people's hands,

(01:57):
and so you trust the integrity of the workforce, particularly
the teaching workforce, and so it's not necessarily a flaw
with the program. It's probably some misinterpretation from the grown
ups that are helping support it.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Misinterpretation. How can you misinterpret and take the food before
the kids even get it.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, well, they might have thought everyone had been fed,
they might have thought it was sup plus. So it's
always better to go and ask in questions rather than
making statements. However, if kids are going hungry, someone's getting
it wrong.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, okay, So the problem here what this is going
to do, undoubtedly is it's going to turn people off.
If people already sort of are not super keen on
paying for other people's kids to eat at school, this
is going to just turn them off even more, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, well yes, but this is more than likely a
very isolated incident where people have got it wrong, if
it is indeed happening, because I know that for example,
on my campus, we have first lunch going out. It's
at eleven o'clock in the morning, get a payload in there,
and then anything that's left over. Kids come back around
for another go at lunchtime, and then anything that's again

(03:07):
left over, if staff need to grab one, they can.
But also our provider does excess that they don't charge
the ministry for in order to support stuff in that process.
So there's ways to there's ways to make it all
look and feel good. But yeah, there's there's lots of
good work happening in this lunch program across the country,

(03:27):
and I would hate for one site that might be
getting it wrong to to impact all the others.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Thank you Vaughan, appreciate it. There's Vunquel Secretary Principals Association President.
Of course it's to a cow college when the look
in the food. Of course it is what school did
I go to? To a cour college? That's how we
roll down there, get in first before the others. Can
you got it? You know, like the earliest uff gets
the worm, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, disappointing that to

(03:57):
ak our college is not talking to me because I
was like, Hey, I'm an old I'm an old girl.
Tell them what I'm an old I don't feel like
that kind like a desol to school is the kind
of one that past people's traditionally called themselves old girls.
And do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
So?

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Was is this al to the crappy end of the scale?
Is it desil nine? Yet we would sell too hard
out of fact, I think we were desole one when
I was there. Anyway, school's principal doesn't did not even
clearly clearly, I did not learn my manners from that school,
did not even respond to us, did not even get
back to us. However, has told other media Rude Chris

(04:29):
that kids had missed it did not know that kids
had missed out for a month, but has admitted there
were some instances where staff did get the meals before
the students did, so there's no dispute about these facts anyway.
So as a result, started texting one of my mates
who was the head girl, and we were just we
were having a little bit of a game of guessing
which of the teachers nick them first. And I think
we agree, we both we both think we know. For
more from Heather du Classie Allen Drive, listen live to

(04:52):
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