When principals become developers
How Queenstown's housing forces schools to think like developers
Oded Nathan, principal of Wakatipu High School, manages a 1,400-student institution in New Zealand's most expensive housing market where the median salary sits below $50,000. By April 2024, the school had already exceeded its entire 2023 spending on financial support for struggling families, while staff members increasingly commute from surrounding towns like Cromwell, 45 minutes away.
The talent drain is severe, with teachers in their late twenties and thirties leaving for more affordable communities once they realize homeownership in Queenstown is untenable. The crisis has pushed the school into unprecedented territory, managing a small property portfolio of units and townhouses that still can't meet the needs of over 100 teachers.
Oded's response has become increasingly bold: partnering with businesses and the Wakatipu High School Foundation for subsidized rent, collaborating with the local housing trust, and approaching council and developers to donate land for staff accommodation. He worries about Queenstown following Aspen's trajectory, becoming a resort town hollowed of the families and professionals who make it function.
Despite headlines about teenage struggles, he finds his students engaging and empathetic, though they navigate extraordinary pressures including housing instability that forces their families into impossible choices. For Oded, the housing crisis has transformed into an educational crisis demanding schools take on roles far beyond their traditional mandate.
