Low voting numbers prompts school with white supremacist board candidate to urge parents to vote
Tuesday, 30 August 2022
A Christchurch school where a white supremacist is standing for the board of trustees is urging parents to vote, with fewer than 20% so far casting a vote.
Philip Arps, who was jailed for sharing footage of the March 15 terror attack, is one of nine people contesting five parent trustee roles at Te Aratai College, formerly Linwood College, despite continuing to express racist and homophobic views online.
His decision to stand has caused anxiety among Muslim students at the multicultural school and has led to calls for the Ministry of Education to change rules on who can be elected to the Board of Trustees.
Arps was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment in 2019 after he sent a video of the mosque killings to 30 people and asked a friend to modify it by adding cross-hairs and a “kill count”. In 2016, Arps delivered a severed pig's head to Masjid An-Nur (Al-Noor mosque).
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The sluggish voter return has prompted Te Aratai to email parents this week, urging them to vote.
Principal Richard Edmundson confirmed 179 or 17% of parents had already voted.
He said it was important for everyone to vote because of the significant influence the board of trustees had in governance, strategic vision and values of the school.
Arps has continued to espouse his racist and transphobic views online.
On Saturday, he criticised the school's racism prevention and community code of conduct policy via Telegram – an online platform that allows users to discuss topics without censorship.
He also criticised the school’s gender-neutral uniforms and its “woke agenda”.
He has also linked to a post on another social media platform where he uses the name ‘Antisemite’ and refers to Hitler as “our prophet”.
Last week, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said the Ministry of Education and New Zealand School Trustees Association (NZSTA) were currently looking at establishing a code of conduct for school boards.
However, Stuff has discovered a code of conduct, with the power to remove problematic parents, was first recommended to government in September 2019 – almost three years before Arps made his election bid.
The Tomorrow's Schools Independent Taskforce report said: “We believe that all boards should be required to adhere to a common national code of conduct, with the option for boards to add to this in accordance with their local circumstances.”
The expert panel said the rules should include the power to remove board members, “where (they) do not act according to a national code of conduct”.
Tinetti said a code of conduct was at the discussion stage between NZSTA and the ministry, but there was no time frame for when it might be implemented.
“I spoke to the STA two weeks ago, before [the Arps] issue came up, and they are hoping to get advice back to me in the next couple of months,” she said.
Edmundson said he was proud of how the students and the community around Te Aratai had embraced diversity. He was unable to comment on Arps’ decision to stand but confirmed the school had sent a message encouraging parents to vote.
The school has a high proportion of Māori, Pacific and Asian students – 478 (63%) of its 873 roll.
Despite the criminal conviction, Arps is lawfully allowed to stand in Te Aratai College’s board parent election.
Year 13 student Kaltan Gardner earlier said the school “would not feel like a safe space” if Arps was elected to the board.
Finlay Laird, presiding member of parent representatives, said it was up to the community to decide which candidates share their personal values.
Parents can continue to vote online or by post until September 7.