Hundreds of parents in Melbourne’s West are celebrating an education department back-flip on a new school zone which would have excluded their children.
The Education Department changed the zone for Strathmore Secondary College without notice on April 2, only weeks before the college’s enrolments opened on April 22, according to parents.
It excluded Strathmore Heights and a wedge of Strathmore and Essendon which would have forced them to go to schools in Glenroy and Gladstone Park.
The new zone extended east to take in parts of Coburg.
Hundreds of parents gathered outside the school on April 7 to protest the re-zoning. They bombarded the Premier and Education Minister with protest emails, set up a Facebook page and letter-boxed affected areas.
Less than 24 hours after the protest rally, Matt Dunkley, the department’s south western region director, emailed parents saying the zone had been reconsidered.
“But while he told us he was reinstating Strathmore Heights back into the zone, he made no mention of the (western) edge of Strathmore and Essendon,” protester Catherine Gibson said.
This western edge took in houses from Bulla Road to Carnarvon Road, Strathmore and streets running off Mount Alexander Road in Essendon leaving hundreds of parents in limbo on whether their areas will be reinstated back into the sought after zone.
“We’re sweating right now, it is creating anxiety among parents,” Mrs Gibson said.
“We are in the Strathmore wedge. My daughter is in Grade 4 but we moved here because it was in the Strathmore Secondary College school zone.”
She said parents only learned of the new zone through a primary school newsletter.
One of the campaign organisers Lisa Telford said the department’s decision to reinstate Strathmore Heights in the zone was due to “people power”.
“We organised everyone to email the government and department and we had to act swiftly because enrolments start in a few weeks,” Mrs Telford said.
“The campaign won’t stop until the total zone is reinstated.”
Another organiser Jodi Knox said the scrapped zone that had excluded Strathmore Heights was based on as “the crow flys” distances, but did not take into account natural barriers, such as the Moonee Ponds Creek.
Her daughter, Emily, 9, wrote a letter to Mr Dixon telling him she felt safe riding a bicycle to Strathmore Secondary College, but not riding to Glenroy along a busy road.
Two sitting Labor MPs, Justin Madden, the retiring state member for Essendon, and Kelvin Thomson, the Federal member for Wills, and the Labor candidate for Essendon Danny Pearson, addressed the placard waving crowd at the school this week.
Mr Madden said the speed at which the community had acted showed its strength.
Mr Thomson said it was the second time the department had tried to change the zone in about a decade and the first time it had been defeated.
A department spokesman said although the Strathmore Heights area had been included the original revised zone, excluding parts of Strathmore and Essendon remained the same.
