Once again, thank you to everyone who joined in our consultation meetings during November and December. We had some great feedback and creative suggestions which were generously shared from your lived experience. We value these and will reflect on them as we review and develop our services going forward.

Our proposal to merge the two Deaf Education centres and your response to the proposal, have been submitted to the Ministry of Education. We expect an answer by the end of March. If the Minister agrees with the proposal, we will be able to start planning our next steps and will carry out further consultation with you and our other stakeholders.

At every consultation session, people wanted to know how the proposed merger would improve services for a wider group of deaf and hard of hearing children, New Zealand-wide.

Of the consultation feedback we received from parents and staff, 77% of those who responded were in favour of the proposal to merge the two Deaf Education Centres.

33% of those who responded did not vote in favour of a merger. Most of these people felt they had insufficient information about how a merger would impact future support for their child.

In the meantime, we are continuing to align services across both DEC’s to improve efficiency and raise student achievement and well-being. We are also exploring how we might improve service delivery if a single DEC structure is approved. As we progress, these ideas will be shared with staff, parents and stakeholders.

We will be uploading more detailed information about our recent consultation on both DEC websites and will let you know when this is available.

You may also wish to check out our current Charter which you can find here-

Combined Deaf Education Centres Charter

Our Mission, to ensure that our students learn in an environment where they Belong, Grow, Excel and Choose, inspires and guides our work. It helps us to prioritise improvements that need to be made and reminds everyone of what is important in Deaf Education.

Thanks again for the time and energy many of you took to provide feedback recently, we really do appreciate it.

Kind regards

Rachel Douglas - Board Chair

Terri Johnstone - LSM Employment, Policies

Michael Rondel - LSM Finance, Property