Kia ora koutou,

With the shocking events of last Friday, I’m sure you are all struggling to get “back to some sense of normal life, whatever that may be” and it’s tough.  It’s going to take a while before we can process and fully comprehend what has happened to these innocent members of our community. 

I do, as Board of Trustees Chairperson need to share with you today, a decision which was made a few weeks ago.  Last Tuesday, our Principal Rob Callaghan handed in his resignation to the St Martins Board of Trustees.  Rob has been thinking about this for some time and it’s been a difficult decision.

The Board has accepted his resignation and he will leave St Martins at the end of Term 2, on July 22nd.

While there will be time for an appropriate farewell for Rob at the end of Term 2, I do want to take time now to pay tribute to him as a leader of our school over the past ten years.  Rob has seen our school through very challenging times, including the earthquakes and more recently the rebuild.  He works tirelessly every day for our children and their teachers, to make St Martins the wonderful, caring and progressive learning environment that it is.  Rob never sits still.  He is always working to try and make things better for our school and to challenge his staff to do the same.  Rob has built a team of exceptional teachers and exceptional leaders within the school and that gives us great stability moving forward.

The Board of Trustees has already begun a process of recruitment to find a new principal for St Martins.  It’s the most important thing a Board will do and we want to ensure we get the very best person we can for our school and our community.  

Any questions around this process, can be directed to me as Board Chairperson.

Noho ora mai,

Jo Malcolm

St Martins Board of Trustees Chairperson