Summary

The 2001 triennial boards of trustees elections were analysed in two separate reports. The first (Report 1) compares the candidates and elected representatives. The second report (Report 2) describes the candidates. In future years these two reports are combined into a single report

Boards of Trustees Elections 2001

Report 1: Parent Candidates and Elected Representatives: Analysis of Gender and Ethnicity

This report compares candidates with elected parent representatives. The 2001 elections for parent representatives were held in around 2,570 state and state integrated schools on or soon after 30 March 2001. Returning officers completed survey forms on the gender, ethnicity and previous board of trustees experience of the candidates. The information on candidates was summarised in a report in July 2001 and is also compared in this report with the available data on elected parent representatives from the Ministry of Education database as at August 2001.

Over 95% of schools responded to the survey on candidates standing for election as parent representatives for the 2001 board of trustees elections. The total number of candidates for these schools was just over 16,800. The number of board of trustees members identified as elected parent representatives on the Ministry of Education database is around 12,300.

Report 2: Results of the Survey of Candidates Standing for Election as Parent Representatives

This report summarises the information received from returning officers after the three yearly elections for parent representatives on school Boards of Trustees held between March and June 2001. The survey form on candidates standing for election as parent representatives appeared as Appendix A in the Returning Officer's Handbook. Appendix A was submitted by 2455 schools from an expected 2578 schools. This is a response rate of just over 95%, which is higher than the response to the survey in 1998 (89%) or 1995 (91%).

There were 2617 state and state integrated schools as at March 2001. Of these schools 10 had commissioners appointed in place of a Board of Trustees, 8 were closing or were so new that they still had an establishment board in place and 14 schools were joining in twos and threes to form 6 combined Boards of Trustees. A further 12 schools were health camps and hospital schools with ministerial appointments to their boards. These schools were not included in the survey and neither was the correspondence school because it has a slightly different board composition from other schools.