College for Mooroopna Learning has advocated to Victorian Education Minister Natalie Hutchins in its continued push to reopen Mooroopna high school.
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The group, known as COOL, was set to meet in-person with Ms Hutchins on Tuesday, November 15 but a last-minute change meant an online meeting was instead held with her chief-of-staff, Robert Larocca.
COOL spokesperson Lea Campbell said they were looking for a firm commitment from whoever formed government that they would not only reopen the school but fund a masterplan.
“Now the election is a closer race, it would be good to get a commitment from both parties,” she said.
Ms Campbell said they were concerned about the Coalition’s promise to hold community consultation into a new high school in Mooroopna.
“The issue for us is we’re competing with everyone in that community consultation process and we don’t think it should be a competition,” she said.
“We don’t think we ought to compete with the green site for a new school potentially to be built, or for the Coalition to find that in the consultation another town is more deserving than us.
“It’s a difficult scenario to know exactly what the Coalition is promising.”
The high school was just one of a range of issues raised with Mr Larocca, including the Victorian Government Schools Agreement struck this year between the union and government.
“The time-in-lieu arrangements are causing havoc around the state in terms of planning for next year and there’s a threat of activities in government schools may be cancelled,” Ms Campbell said.
“We were saying in the meeting, please look further into this because time-in-lieu provisions for teachers and education support staff needs to be a funded component, not an unfunded component.”
COOL staged a silent protest outside the election candidates’ forum in Shepparton on Tuesday night and a question was put to the candidates about Mooroopna high school during the event.
COOL also wrote to Ms Hutchins to ensure she was briefed on the issue.