Save-Our-Schools.info

My wife, Lisa, and I are galled by the decision to close our local school, preschool, playgroups and before-and-after school care programs. We moved to Cook because it is a nice suburb with great schools, quiet streets and the ability to walk or cycle around. Closing the Cook schools will mean this disappears. Closing the Cook schools also means that the circle of friends we and our son have made will be torn apart, based as it is on school. We feel this complete disregard for community and family disqualifies Andrew Barr from being the Eduction Minister and we are disgusted that this uncaring, mean, stupid or greedy (we don’t know which, probably greedy) person will get a tax payer funded pension for foisting this upon us. How does one have a MLA removed from office?

Reece
Lisa
Ash
Eva

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“Funky Four and Friends” have written and performed a rallying song in support of the Save Our Schools Campaign.

You can download and listen to the song here (3.5 MB MP3 file).

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Tamara Glumac, Wednesday, 5 July 2006, Canberra Times (link to article)

The peak public-education advisory body to the ACT Government has revealed “grave concerns” about proposed changes, some of which it says are contrary to its pre-budget advice.
And a leading education expert said yesterday the Government should consider building or refurbishing schools through public-private partnerships if it was to enhance the appeal of public schools

(more…)

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We are told we are in the midst of a baby boom. Why on earth is Mr Barr proposing to close schools that will be more needed in the very near future? If my local school, Cook, is closed, where will they all go? Aranda and Macquarie are already full. So much for ‘more choice’!

Further, for Mr Barr to cite demographic reasons for the closure of schools is simple lying. The last census was held in 2001. We are due for one late this year, with no results likely to be available till next year. A large number of kids needing schools weren’t even born at the last census! Preschools won’t accept forward enrollment, so how on earth can Mr Barr have any clue about demographics? Is he using other database information illegally to determine what our population looks like?

Why is the drag strip still going ahead? If money is tight, then the government needs to get back to basic priorities. Are community schools more or less important than a dragstrip? The minister for both areas clearly thinks there are more votes in a piece of asphalt than our childrens future. Shame, Andrew, Shame.

Mr Barr is going to sell off public assets to help balance the books for now, but damn the ACT to futher fiscal trouble when they have to re-open schools or cram more kids into classrooms. This is not a happy vision for 2020 for anything but the ministers own political aspirations.

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“Funky Four and Friends” have written and performed a rallying song in support of the Save Our Schools Campaign.

You can download and listen to the song here (3.5 MB MP3 file).

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The Hall community has launched the “Save Hall School” website at. It includes general information about the school closures as well as a discussion forum to air your views.

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The Hall community has launched the “Save Hall School” website at www.savehallschool.org/. It includes general information about the school closures as well as a discussion forum to air your views.

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Frances Doherty Says:
June 29th, 2006 at 5:20 pm

When my kids were in pre school around 20 years ago we fought for preschools and won.

Now my youngest will finish school this year. Hurray for a great ACT public education system. It is worth fighting for and the ACT labor government should be ashamed that it has proposed these school closures.

Our kids are the future and education is the key to a good future not just from an employment perspective but also social and other life skills, cultural heritage and community perspective.

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Our teachers, our schools, the budget

By Clive Haggar – from “The Word” (link to article)

The dispute between the ACT Government and teachers is about to widen with the ACT’s public education community up in arms over school closures and job cuts in education. (Read on…)

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“Funky Four and Friends” have written and performed a rallying song in support of the Save Our Schools Campaign.

You can download and listen to the song here (3.5 MB MP3 file).

Filed under: Latest News
No Comments