8 January 2007

Where's my school?

| emd
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Today is the day they’re supposed to find out the new Priority Enrolment Areas for Canberra public schools.

This affects huge numbers of Canberrans after last year’s school closures. Staff are moving schools, parents need to make decisions about risking an out-of-area application for a better school vs their new “local” (which may be across two suburbs and several major roads and a backwards drive from the route to work)…

I went to the DET website’s What’s New page and there’s a link to Priority Enrolment Areas. The page was last updated on 27/01/2006 (wierd enough). But it still lists schools that were closed last year – it’s not a new list at all!

I phoned DET to find out, but their lines are busy with teachers trying to find out where they’re working next year. Update will be posted when I get a link to an updated PEA list…..

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miz, I taught up to 4 different subjects a semester. I have had 10 class changes in 1 semester due to a “shortage” of teachers in a subject and I could teach it.

I think the only KLAs I haven’t taught in a high school are PE, Science and the Arts (I have taught Visual Arts).

Thank God I’m primary trained because I’ve seen people flounder who aren’t.

They are also changing the way they offer certain specialty subjects in high school too – so eg an art or music teacher is also supposed to be able to teach, say Japanese or the like. Why, you may well ask? Don’t you know these are all ‘Arts’ subjects???!

So the ‘outcome’ (ie the upshot or result, to those of us not in the PS) is likely to be a ‘specialty’ subject taught by someone who doesn’t really know much at all, about the subject matter, let alone their speciality, and who pobably specialised in something quite different at Uni.

seepi it’s to do with points per school. 15 students = 1 teacher. Language teachers are “extra” points. Meaning you have to have more students to justify to ACTDET that you can have a language program.

What is the problem with a public school offering language classes? Barr says he wants to stop the drain of students to private schools – well offering a good curriculum would be one way.

emd I sympathise, I have the same situation but this year only, then it’s 2 places.

The PEAs aren’t that good anyway – it’s almost like they had a map up of Canberra and then threw darts at it to determine the PEAs.

A story on ABC News ACT today says that students moving from closed schools get priority anywhere in their district. But having phoned DET yesterday, students starting in 2007 onwards will have the same choice as anyone else: PEA school, or plead your case elsewhere. Given more schools will be at 100% capacity, I’m looking at three children wanting to be dropped off in three different suburbs at about the same time in a few years. And then I have to get to work on time.

Thumper, I think that line is eloquently expressive of ACT Govt thinking (or lack of).

Woody Mann-Caruso12:22 am 10 Jan 07

AnDy, donOrs, carry on…

Woody Mann-Caruso12:19 am 10 Jan 07

I wanted to send my son there specifically to learn Italian

I was talking to my mate Any today. “Andy,” I said, “I know you wouldn’t want to make a hasty decision, so I thought you should know that queen_vic_toria_ii really, really wants the public to foot the bill for little Tarquin to learn Italian.”

“Fuck, Woody,” he said, “I had no idea. I’ll change my decision right away!”

And then the drought ended. True story.

did you just say ‘accountable and transparent decision making’???

You mean you missed the part where the government told everybody which schools they were closing, and why, and the part where you get to hold them to account with your vote? Perhaps you’re one of those brain doners who thinks the Minister should visit each and every house in turn, ask everybody there about their particular opinions, and then work out a solution that meets budget requirements from now until the sun explodes, gives everybody an Ivy League education with personal tutelage from Nobel prize-winning scholars and means that no individual is even slightly inconvenienced by having to walk further than their mailbox.

DET website – technical issues – can’t view the high school map at all, comes up continually with an error. The adjacent lists all say ‘page not found’ (except for largely unaffected college link). And oddly they don’t seem to have redrawn the PEA for some of the primaries, I checked Mt Neighbour and its PEA is still there, just unlabelled – helpful – NOT.
I also take issue with the assumption that everyone can get online to check these things (typical ACT public service trait to assume the world is online if they are, and they have done everything to inform if it’s ‘up on the website’). I hope they have given out a hotline number.

I must be just lucky then.

– actually i sent in two submissions – maybe I got points for keeness. I sent one for Dickson College out of support for the college system.

Seepi I too sent in a (private) submission, but I have received no report . . .

emd, I don’t know why. The arbitration (which is holding up places) decision hasn’t been made known. So until it does, teachers won’t.

It’s on the AEU website – and it should be on DET or another option on the phone so as to not clog the system.

Swaggie, the Govt may have promised but the schools weren’t told as “quickly”.

Bonython isn’t a bad place and the kids in afters aren’t ferals btw.

sorry emd i didn’t keep mine. it was a roughly 30page booklet. i assume anyone who wrote a submission got one.

Seepi, where can I see the report?

I gave up the day after the notice of closure when the department promised to run the open days – we trooped along to Bonython at the appointed time thinking we’d look around only to find it locked and closed with just a few ferals running round presumably in ‘after school care’ which more closely resembled ‘after school run around and do what you like’. The whole exercise has been a shambles but increasingly you expect nothing less from the Department and ultimately the gutless wonder who runs this Government.

They need to close the schools, cut back on bus services, keep policing to a minimum, etc., so that Summernats can get more government funding

They’ve certainly lost me. Six months of u-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e stress while we tried to keep our school from being closed, plus family members in the teaching profession who still don’t know where the hell they will be teaching this year or the hours they are to work (cos Barr wouldn’t parley). Add the closing or stripped essential services such as bus fiasco, Civic shopfront and Griffith library (and other libraries to be understaffed and ‘satelited’). Any more public facilities and personnel they can club to death?

queen_vic_toria_II12:18 pm 08 Jan 07

emd…. did you just say ‘accountable and transparent decision making’??? HAH, Stanhope has a majority government, which basically means he can screw with whomever he wants and he can get away with it! I hope you all remember these issues at the next election!

emd I got sent a report on the closures. It mostly summarised the submissions they received.

I know, it totally sucks. Who’s going to send their child to a P-2 or P-3 only to switch to a P-6 to complete their primary schooling? Why not just use a P-6 from the start?

It also sucks that the ACT Govt didn’t have to give any reasons for why they made their final decision. Just gave us a list of who’s closing, who’s amalgamating, and who’s staying open. So much for accountable and transparent decision making.

queen_vic_toria_II11:59 am 08 Jan 07

Can I please ask what is going on with Lyons Primary? I know that is isn’t closing, but is being made into an ‘early childhood centre’, my question is qhy are they destroying the only Italian Bilingual school in the ACT??? I wanted to send my son there specifically to learn Italian, and I was impressed that a public School offered this to the ‘general public’, with two years to go, my husband and I are now going to work our butts off so I can send him to a private school so he has the opportunity to do extra curricular things…

I don’t understand how the residents of the ACT can continue to vote for this stupid excuse for a Government!

Yip-yay! I got a call back from a real human being at DET, who said they’re hoping it will be on the website later today. It’s all ready to publish, just awaiting final approval.

It was DET that said they’re getting all the calls from teachers. Just passing on what info I’ve been given so far.

emd it’s not blocked up because of the teachers. Staffing aren’t back until next Monday.

It must be all the parents who need to enrol their children now their local school has been closed.

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