By KATH GANNAWAY
A CONDEMNED art room and portable buildings that are sinking have prompted a call by Yarra Junction Primary School parents for what they say is a long-overdue upgrade.
After 30 years with no significant State Government infrastructure funding, School Council president Brian Westlake said the school community was left wondering whether providing community-funded buildings over the years has been its undoing.
And, with no money in the current state budget for the estimated $2 million upgrade that the school council believes is warranted, the plight of the school’s 247 students is on the radar to become an election issue when the new seat of Eildon comes up for grabs in November.
The issue came to a head when the art room, a 1926 shelter shed which was converted by parents in the 1970s, was condemned and earmarked for demolition.
Two other buildings, a relocated school house, which is used for computer classes, and the stadium, were also built by the school community.
“The Education Department have added those buildings in as part of the school’s facilities and the effect of that is that we aren’t eligible for anything new because of the buildings we have,” Mr Westlake said.
“Basically, they are saying ‘you have enough’,” he said.
Mr Westlake said community-funded facilities are not counted in the same way at other schools, which begged the question, ‘why is Yarra Junction being disadvantaged?’.
He said the problem was compounded by Education Department portable buildings that were placed on backfilled soil some years ago.
He said the building’s foundations sunk as the ground settled and now the building’s doors won’t shut properly or won’t open.
The School Council wants to demolish the art building but also wants a guarantee that it will be replaced – something it said the government is not prepared to do.
The School Council’s wants to replace the portables with two new classrooms and an adjoining art room.
Mr Westlake said the school had applied but failed to get funding over several years to address the school’s sprawl of ageing and high-maintenance buildings.
Seymour MP and candidate for Eildon Cindy McLeish told the Mail she had met with the School Council and was verifying through the Education Minister what funding had, or had not, been provided to the school.
She said inconsistencies in the way regions categorised community-funded buildings made the matter complicated.
“I have a good understanding of the situation from the school’s point of view. I need to get an understanding from the department now and have raised the matter with the minister,” she said.
In terms of an election promise, Ms McLeish said she would like to see the matter resolved before the election.
“The budget has been fully expended, so I am trying to ascertain what we can do,” she said.
Labor candidate for Eildon and local resident Sally Brennan has also been out to the school which she said had been held up by the Education Department as a flagship of community activity in a school, but which was now being penalised because of that involvement.
“They have been so successful in creating wonderful facilities off their own bat, using their own resources, and now the department comes in, closes a building and refuses to replace it,” she said.
“This is a school that has put in for funding and should have received it.
“The template (for new buildings) is around $2.2 million, it’s not a massive amount of money but what it would save in heating, cooling and on-going maintenance alone is massive.”
