Gumleaf Primary School – Mythical Name, Real Pain!
Its not just the School Council Parents that are hurt with Bronwyn Pike’s Scape Goat School Merger Policy!
In checking out about School Mergers in Victoria, I came a cross an interesting paper that was looking back on the experiences of participants in a “Master in School Leadership” course that was developed at Monash and Melbourne University. The program was described basically about helping kick start Educators in the area of leadership:
In 2004 the Department embarked on an exciting and ambitious venture, engaging Monash University and the University of Melbourne to design a Master in School Leadership (MSL) program.
This high quality development opportunity, which leads to an accredited master qualification, was designed to enhance the leadership capacity of current and future leaders and provide an opportunity for teacher leaders to share professional learning with fellow educators from all over Victoria.
(Source: Willing to Lead – http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/staffdev/schlead/Willing_to_Lead/Willing_to_Lead_-_Master_in_School_Leadership.pdf)
To my surprise, Mary Verwey (right) had written a Case Study about her experiences at “Gumleaf Primary School”, a school that had went through a messy school merger. Interestingly enough, Mrs Verwey had been the Acting Principal at Oakwood Park Primary School, the school that my son had gone to for his first two years until it closed in a messy school merger process.
A small win in the Fight to make (Bronwyn) Pike do whats Right
July 4, 2009 by mollyfud · Leave a Comment
Education Minister, Bronwyn Pike
Earlier in the week I wrote a little post about the fight to get the Victorian Government, Victorian Education Department, Bronwyn Pike and the Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks John Brumby to take ownership of School Closure/Merger decisions in the state due to the fact that, although they are getting school councils to vote on these decisions, they are also activily forcing many of these councils into these decisions.
Well the first victory in the campaign has been won with the Minister giving in on the fight to have them come forth with the list of schools that have merged or closed user there government. The story was broken by The Age and its Education Editor, Farrah Tomazin and Education Reporter, Miki Perkins:
MORE than 150 Victorian public schools have closed or merged since Labor has been in government, with the Education Department reaping millions of dollars from schools that have shut down.
Education Minister Bronwyn Pike yesterday bowed to pressure and released a list of schools that have closed or merged since 1999, insisting each one had been a voluntary decision by the local community.
via School closures list released in Government about-face.
So now we have them admitting that there have been a lot of schools changing structure, now its time to push on and ask that they take the ownership for these school closures instead of laying the blame squarely at the feet of the hard working Parents that give up hours of there time with no reward to sit on school councils to help not only their kids but all the other kids at the school during their time there and into the future (if the schools have a futrue depending on the will of the Government/Department!):
But with more mergers and closures to come, Ms Pike rejected Opposition claims the Government had a “hit list” of schools.
“It’s always a decision that the community themselves make,” she said.
Why can’t the Government that is elected to Govern and make the hard decisions own the decisions that they are making? Why must you blame us Minister? And it is blame and it is hiding from scrutiny! Its weak! I challenge you to stand up strong. Say bugger the political fallout (which to be honest there would be little as no one actually believes your not forcing schools to merger anyway), I am going to do what is right, what I was elected to do because it is right, not that it is popular! Because to be honest, I have been a labour voter my whole life, but this has turned me off them and the only way they can win back my vote is by being strong and doing what is right for a change!
Oh, by the way, your list is already wrong! For one, Lyndale and GreenSlopes Primary schools have agreed to merge! Do you know of any others missing off the list? Leave a comment below!
Forced School Mergers in Victoria
June 30, 2009 by mollyfud · 3 Comments
The Victorian Labour Government loves claiming that they don’t close schools, that they leave it up to the School communities (and more to the point) the School Councils to decide the fate of there schools! For those of you that have been through the process know, that although there is elements of truth to the story, the part of the story the forget to tell is that they have made the decisions behind the scenes and do everything in there power to make sure the out comes that they want are achieved and that the School Councils are the ones the when left with out any other decision, have to do the actual vote to close the school and therefor wear the blame (and thats what the government and education department do, blame the school council) for the rest of time, with the Government trying to wash their hands of the issue and remain clean so that they can bash the Liberal party and Jeff Kennett about the number of schools they closed.
Now I know some schools are probably redundant and that money can be spent better on one bigger school rather then two small schools, but my argument and goal is to have the State Government and the Education department to live up too their responsibility and own the decision to have schools close or merge (notice I didn’t say to make the decision? That’s because there already making the decision, they are just hiding behind the school councils to own the decision).
Now your school might not have been involved in a school merger and you might say, why do I care. With all the extra work and discussions that are taking place, it has to be more expensive to try to have the school councils talked/forced in to the decision then it is to just make the decision and live with the political backlash that might come!
So I will write more on the site in the coming weeks (assuming that there isn’t an about face by the government) but in the mean time, if you have been through the Building Futures program and been part of a school that has merged because of it and you have some stories to tell about the tactics and the process, either leave a comment below or email me at mollyfud@gmail.com.
Lets see if we can get the Government to come clean and be strong on an issue for once, instead of spending there time commenting on TV shows and Celebrities as they seem to be at the present time!
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