The ups and downs continue

[rumpelsnorcack]

You know you're from Christchurch when ... the quintessential chch question "so what school did you go to?" has been relaplaced with the uniquely chch question "so what zone are you in?" (words stolen from m0th95 )

I wasn't even sure how to structure this post because the morning went up and down like a yo-yo.  So I think I'll do it event by event and see where that leaves us.  

1.   We have just discovered that we are a 'crack house' - well, we always were with some small, mostly insignificant cracks in walls.  But now I have discovered a long crack in our sunroom floor that appeared suddenly and in the space of a couple of hours went from 'dent in floor, possibly slumping' to 'wow, there's a noticeable crack in the concrete and the lino has started to split' - scary stuff.  It seems to have settled down now but the speed at which it appeared and spread was a worry.  It's also a worry that it just appeared - there were no significant aftershocks yesterday that could have caused it, so the house has obviously just been quietly slumping in that corner and now decided to go the whole hog and crack.  

 

2.  The zoning maps were printed in full technicolour detail in the paper this morning.  They took up two whole pages and were quite overwhelming.  Incidentally, choosing red, green and orange as the colours for those has been awkward for my husband who can't distinguish between them - sometimes the red blends into the orange for him and other times the green does.  Either way he can't see the orange.  I can't imagine he's the only one.  But that was just an aside.  The real issue with the printed maps was the fear it generated among people who hadn't before realised just how close to the dodgy zones the school is.  It's clear that, according to the map, if the orange land is turned red, the 'red zone' will cut a swathe right through the school grounds.  If it's green or some of it's green, the school should be okay.  But it's scary because we just don't know.  This made for some very tense conversations this morning - people are worried that the school will be shut down.  There are rumours from other nearby schools that don't help - like an idea that we will be closed down and our kids parceled out among the other local schools.  Tension was at a huge high even among people in the 'green zone' because no-one wants to lose the school.  Most chose to live in the school's catchment for a reason and those of us who are out of zone chose to bypass our local school for a reason.  It's even worse for those in the red who were stressed because many of them don't want to leave the school but with the lack of availability of sections in the area they probably have to even if the school survives this somehow.

 

3.  While we were lining up for the free coffee a groups of kids were brought out of the closest classroom and lined up behind us.  We all thought that was odd but just smiled at them and let them be.  Then a bunch of people with microphones and a camera turned up and I had a moment of recognition.  A few weeks ago The Palms mall (which I miss so much because it's still out of action after February's quake and has the best mall movie theatre in town and some of my favourite shops) launched a competition.  People were invited to nominate schools, community groups etc which had been affected by the quakes and explain why they deserved to win part of $100,000.  Freeville was nominated and ended up in the top twenty finalists - at which point it was opened to the public for voting.  The group that got the most votes was to win $50,000 and the next 5 most votes would win $10,000 each.  They started announcing the winners 5 days ago and I'd lost hope that we would be one of the groups because out of the pool of 20 there were some extremely worthy causes (like the Student Volunteer Army, who actually won yesterday's $10,000, and the Aranui Community Food Centre) and only 6 could win.  There had already been a school and it looked like they were spreading the joy around a variety of types of community groups, but when I saw Peter and Hillary from the Breeze, who I knew were helping with the announcements, I got excited.  Anyway, long story short:

 

 

It was just the pick me up we needed right then.  The kids who were being filmed were beside themselves and just gorgeous!  I suspect I have once again made it onto camera (ugh) because during the filming they did for the slot, they turned the camera on us and got us to react - which was a bit of a worry because right then I was a bit tearful at the ups and downs of the day (more on that in #4) and was possibly not as enthusiastic as they might have liked.  I'm kind of hoping that they choose not to use that footage in their segment, but regardless it was a terrific experience and really gave a boost to a bleak day.

 

4.  Talked to two people whose homes are in the red zone and they are devastated - first because they will have to leave the school and second because at least one of them lives in a house less than a year old and the amount they are being paid out to move off the land is at 2007 values - there was no house on that land in 2007 so the values are really skewed.  Now, there are things they can do to try and get the payment to better reflect what the house was worth as at September 3rd last year, but it's an added stress on top of the knowledge that they have to uproot and leave the area they had hoped to retire in.  Add to that the stress of knowing that pretty much all the sections available on this side of the city are either a) not ready to be built on because of only just being opened for development yesterday - so no infrastructure in place which makes them 3-ish years away or b) priced well above what is going to be paid out on their old land so they won't be able to afford it.  Not to mention that a lot of these people have lost income streams and so getting another mortgage will be next to impossible for some of them - and it was stress upon stress and they were all very close to breaking.  There were some very unhappy people.  They both said that the thing that hit home hardest was that yesterday morning there were trucks in the streets sucking drains and fixing up basic infrastructure.  As of the moment the announcements were made they all left.  They have been given 9 months to decide, but with no amenities and things getting worse they can't stay in those homes - but where do they go in the meantime?   Although we need to bear in mind that some of what I say here is based on what knowledge there is to date, some extrapolation and some hearsay. That is to say some things some people said today will have been coming from an emotive PoV and they may find things aren't as bad as they appear right now - and as it becomes more clear what the government package actually entails they might not be as badly off as they fear.  Still, right now, there are some VERY unhappy people at the school and it's been very emotional even as an outsider watching them go through it :-(
 

5.  However, I left school feeling slightly more positive because I talked to a friend who is on the school's Board of Trustees and they were at a meeting with the Ministry last night.  The Ministry assured them all that no school will be told 2 weeks from the end of the year that they would have no school the next year and have to be shut down.  This will be because the last time the government had to deal with a school that was going to cost to repair they did exactly that - told them 2 weeks before the end of the year that they were shutting down and farming the kids out to other local schools.  There was outrage over it, but they have assured the boards that this situation is different, and that there will be community consultation before anything is decided.  I still don't trust the Minister of Education (she is one of the worst of the worst politicians in parliament at the moment), but I have fingers crossed.  Every school's funding is based on the roll as at July 1st each year, and coming up to this July we'll have 293 kids compared to 302 last year - not a huge drop, so we should be okay at least in the short term.  The worry is, however, with 16% of our students in the red zone and another 20% in the orange that roll could drop markedly over the rest of the year.  The other big question mark is, of course, that this appears to be based solely on roll numbers and hasn't taken into account possible zoning into the red zone.  So, I feel better about roll issues affecting the school than I did when I woke up this morning, but there's still that big question about that status of the school's land.  I'm cautiously hopeful that it's okay because while we've had liquefaction it didn't affect any buildings and any buildings that may be affected in a future, larger event are the ones that either have been knocked down or will now be knocked down after the 6.3 last Monday.  If needs be the buildings could be put onto the field and the field moved to where the old buildings used to be.  So, I'm hopeful.  But I won't stop fully worrying until we a) get a definitive answer from the Ministry and b) the land report on schools is released.