Parents across Caroline Springs and Taylors Hill are calling for a new high school because students are being turned away from the one closest to their home.
Lakeview Senior College in Caroline Springs, which caters for years 10-12, is bursting at the seams, with students from three prep-year 9 schools – Springside, Creekside and Brookside colleges – vying for places each year.
The closest options for unsuccessful students are Taylors Lakes Secondary College or Copperfield College.
Sally Cefai is part of a group of parents circulating a petition calling for a new high school or senior campus in the area. The petition has more than 1100 signatures.
Ms Cefai said it would take her daughter, who is a grade 3 student at Springside College, about 30 minutes to get to Taylors Lakes Secondary College if she didn’t make the cut for Lakeview.
“They’re not addressing the high school needs in the area,” she said.
“We have so many primary schools, but there just aren’t enough senior campuses.”
Eva Fattore, whose son Anthony is in grade 6, said her family was also in a state of limbo.
“We don’t have a guarantee that our kids will have automatic entry into the senior campus, which frustrates all of us,” she said.
Keilor MP Natalie Hutchins estimates another 12,000 homes will be built in the area over the next five years, further compounding the issue.
“There is an absolute and unquestionable need for a new high school, and I think that’s a commitment that needs to happen before our next state election,” Ms Hutchins said.
“It’s the government’s job to provide secondary places. It’s a great area to live in, but we don’t want it to be harmed by the fact that there aren’t enough secondary places as our suburbs grow.”
Ms Hutchins said a piece of land in Plumpton that had previously been earmarked for a private secondary school would be an ideal site for a new high school, while the Mowbray College site, which has sat dormant since June 2012, could have been used to expand Lakeview. The Mowbray site will reopen next year as a private high school, as previously reported by Star Weekly.
Meanwhile, the state government is selling five pieces of school land across Brimbank, including the former Calder Rise Primary School, Deer Park Primary School, Kealba Secondary College and Keilor Park Primary School as well as land in McCubbin Drive in Sydenham North.
Ms Hutchins wants the government to use the proceeds raised from those sales to go back into the local area.
A spokeswoman for Education Minister Martin Dixon said the department was “working closely with the schools in Caroline Springs to ensure fair and equitable access for all students to all stages of government education”.
