Boards of trustees of many schools would despair at the thought of consulting a community which spreads from Invercargill to New Plymouth.
But the members of Van Asch College are tackling their task with enthusiasm.
Board member Ava Buzzard, who has been deaf since birth, is excited by the chance to have a greater role in a school she has been involved with for many years.
Ms Buzzard is one of six members of the board of Van Asch College, the school for the deaf at Sumner, Christchurch.
Three board members are profoundly deaf; the other three can hear and are parents of hearing-impaired or deaf children.
Ms Buzzard believes it is very important to have the hearing impaired on school boards, and to have hearing impaired children in area schools, so that people working more closely together.
Before a management board was appointed to govern Van Asch through two of the children who are deaf and have special education needs, she signalled a greater change for the special schools than other general schools.
Van Asch, as a special school, had been governed, with the other two special schools, by a regional school committee.
Special board committees had met four times during the last year, just beginning the process of more community involvement and accountability.
Van Asch is responsible for the education of all deaf and hearing impaired children in an area covering three-quarters of New Zealand.
Kelston School, Auckland, is responsible for those in the top part of the North Island; the deaf community in the rest of New Zealand look to Van Asch.
Van Asch has a residential school at Sumner, with special units for preschool and primary school age children.
Van Asch resource teachers are also responsible for seeing programmes for hearing-impaired or deaf children who are mainstreamed in other centres.
Van Asch has close links with Sumner Primary School, which is mainstreamed; children who are hearing impaired in junior classes at Sumner also attend classes at Van Asch.
High school students attend Christchurch’s Linwood High.
Mr Bensley said the board wanted to consult with as many people as possible including staff in all parts of New Zealand, former students, pupils, Christchurch local groups and deaf adults.
Ms Buzzard said many deaf adults had great difficulty with reading and so consultation with them was “face to face” at meetings.
“There are about 8000 profoundly deaf people in New Zealand.”
Van Asch has had three board meetings. Mr Bensley cheerfully admits the meetings were chaotic at first.
Ms Buzzard uses sign language and an interpreter signs everything she wants to say, as well as all comments made by other board members. One of the other deaf board members is more used to communicating through writing on a computer, so someone writes all comments for this person.
Ms Buzzard was eligible for election to the board through her son, Bennie, 5, who is deaf. Bennie attends Sumner Primary.
Ms Buzzard attended Van Asch College and then did a typing course at Christchurch Polytechnic and got a job at New Zealand Industrial Gases, where she worked 11 years.
Now her face is best known to television viewers of News Review, the programme for the deaf which she has been appearing in for three years.
She also does a lot of work in counselling deaf people, and says more counsellors, who are deaf, are needed.
Ms Buzzard believes it is important for hearing and deaf people to work together.
Her face lights up as she says: “When deaf people are always separate, they do not know how to know about one another.”
To hear better, they need interpreters. New Zealand has only 20 trained interpreters; one in Auckland, and one is in Christchurch.
Mr Bensley, stood for the board because, through his deaf son and daughter, he has had experience of education for the deaf both at Van Asch and in mainstreamed classes.
His daughter, Kellye is mainstreamed. His son, Ashley, 3, attends Van Asch.