Last Weeks Speaker - Lynne Guy

Lynn Guy spoke to us today about the New Zealand School Trustees Association, the national organisation which represents the views of and provides services to member Boards of Trustees. The NZSTA grew out of the School Committees and is the largest single group of crown entities in the country with approximately 18,000 people currently serving.  NZSTA has a contract with MOE to deliver a fully integrated range of services free to boards, supporting and enhancing boards’ capabilities in governance and employment.  The national body actively works on education policy and decisions with Government and works alongside MOE to negotiate collective agreements with unions.  As regional employment advisor Lynn also works with individual boards on interpretation of employment agreements, leave, particularly sick leave issues, performance and conduct issues, relationship breakdowns and bullying.  She’s all over Otago and Southland trouble shooting - dealing with complaints and complainants, principals, teachers, and parents and as you can perhaps imagine, both the reasonable and the unreasonable, with (I’m sure in no small part, thanks to her) only a very few of them making the headlines.  No actual war stories from her today but so interesting and questions ran over time!