19 June 2006

Proposed school closures brings barrage of meetings.

| Jey
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In reaction to the ACT Government’s proposed school closures, announced as part of the 2006/7 Budget, various groups of the Canberra community are organising their opposition. Community meetings are popping up around town.

Dickson College has one planned for Thursday June 22 at 7:30pm.

Hackett Preschool’s Parents’ Association has organised Angela Anderson from teh Department of Education and Training to come along on Tuesday June 20 at 7:30pm. Alison Inglis President of the Hackett Preschool Parent’s Association can be contacted before the meeting.

Perhaps in defiance Hackett Preschool also has registrations now opened for 2007 and will be holding their Garage Sale on Saturday June 24 from 10am.

Save Our Schools has created their own website which includes an online petition and a draft letter which can be sent to ministers.

One of the Government proposals of particular concern to myself is the merger of The Woden School, a special education school for years 5-10, with Alfred Deakin High School. Discussion around this will take place tommorow night (Tuesday June 20) at the Canberra College from 7pm-8:30pm. This meeting, which will also cover discussion of other proposed school changes in the area, is one of many organised by the ACT Government, ‘keen to know the views of the community’ on their rather Orwellian ‘Towards 2020: Renewing Our Schools’ plan.

All the Government organised meetings to cover discussion of schools in the (I assume) respective areas are from 7pm-8:30pm at the locations and dates below:
Gunghalin Monday 19 June Amaroo School
Woden Tuesday 20 June Canberra College (Woden Campus)
Weston Creek Wednesday 21 June Stromlo High School
North West Belconnen Monday 26 June Copland College
South East Belconnen Monday 27 June Canberra High School
South Canberra Wednesday 28 June Telopea Park School
Tuggeranong Thursday 29 June Caroline Chisholm High school
North Canberra Monday 3 July Campbell Primary School

Further meetings are promised with community groups, parent of students with a disability, school staff, business representatives and representatives of other groups that may be interested in or affected by the proposals.

More info available here.

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Absent Diane3:31 pm 20 Jun 06

hehe… yeah pumpkin head was a class act all the way!!

But you’ve got to hand it to Kate: she would have handled this issue so much better and have turned it into a great media opportunity.

Imagine being the lucky kid who was selected to blow up their own school! 😉

That would never work: Labor have probably only known for 6 years that they’ll have to close a few schools, so they can’t possibly be expected to give people another 18 months of “consultation” time. It all needs to be in the bag by next week, at the latest; and it’s all the Liberal Party’s fault this has happened. 😉

Melrose Primary in Chifley are also still taking enrolments for 2007. The compulsory community consultation period doesn’t end til early December, therefore schools must continue to take enrolments as they can’t 100% guarantee being open/closed til two weeks before the end of school year.

You can imagine the drama this causes parents of kids whose school is already set to close. Not knowing what their new local public school is (the new priority enrolment areas have not been publicised yet), and not knowing 100% if their school really will close, what do they do? All they CAN do is put their kids names down at all local public schools in their area, as well as the current one, and make a final decision in late December. Which doesn’t leave much time for the kids to say goodbye to their friends and adjust to the idea of a new school next year.

Personally, I think the first closures should have been slated for end of 2007 – so communities have 18 months to prepare for it.

Was Hargrave placed across Sonics knees and wacked?

A request:

Identify where sacvings can be made so that my land taxes dont go up ANOTHER $400 next year.

A request … no more protest songs, please.

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