Katandra School
Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (17:05): (6358) My adjournment is to the Minister for Education, and the action that I seek is for the minister to immediately brief parents of the Katandra special school in Ormond about the closure of that school, which was announced in the budget, to ensure that those parents—I understand that there are 37 families that are affected by this closure—are not disadvantaged in terms of the option of the Berendale expansion that is happening in the member for Bentleigh’s electorate. The parents at Katandra School were not notified about this closure. The first that they heard of this closure was actually on the member for Bentleigh’s Facebook page, on which he announced funding for the Berendale School and the fact that there was extensive community consultation about this announcement. As you can imagine—this is a school that deals with children with special needs—those parents already have enough to deal with, and to find out that their school will be closing from a Facebook page is simply unacceptable. I have certainly had conversations and met with Monique Sheehy, who has sent me correspondence that I have now forwarded to the minister, and I have had subsequent conversations with other parents as well that are equally very disappointed in the way this has been managed.
Now, I understand during budget times members of Parliament can get quite excited about what is happening in their own electorate, and this is certainly not an attack on the member for Bentleigh, but I would have expected that the government would have at least informed me about what was happening in my electorate, about a school closure, and if not me, at least have talked to those parents that have been directly affected. I have had extensive involvement in that school, and I also note that a few years back Rotary Glen Eira did an upgrade and a working bee for some of the playgrounds. It is a great school. It has got a really good community environment. It really does direct the emphasis and attention on those kids and make the kids the centre of attention and focus and the parents part of that community. We do not want to see that lost. For those parents we need to ensure that, whatever happens to those kids, they get the best going forward, and we are asking that the minister meet with those parents and give the guarantee that those parents and those kids will not be disadvantaged going forward.