Role of a School Board of Trustees

All of New Zealand's state and state-integrated schools have a board of trustees. The board of trustees is the Crown entity responsible for the governance and the control of the management of the school. The board is the employer of all staff in the school, is responsible for setting the school's strategic direction in consultation with parents, staff and students, and ensuring that its school provides a safe environment and quality education for all its students. Boards are also responsible for overseeing the management of personnel, curriculum, property, finance and administration.

s75 Boards to control management of schools

Except to the extent that any enactment or the general law of New Zealand provides otherwise, a school's board has complete discretion to control the management of the school as it thinks fit.

s72 Bylaws

Subject to any enactment, the general law of New Zealand, and the school's charter, a school's board may make for the school any bylaws the board thinks necessary or desirable for the control and management of the school.

s76 Principals

(1) A school's principal is the board's chief executive in relation to the school's control and management.

(2) Except to the extent that any enactment, or the general law of New Zealand, provides otherwise, the principal—

(a) shall comply with the board's general policy directions; and

(b) subject to paragraph (a), has complete discretion to manage as the principal thinks fit the school's day-to-day administration.