Starting the high school shuffle

by Morena Milani

Just the other day my nine year old son asked me if it’s OK for him to go to high school with at least a couple of his friends when the time comes. I looked at him rather blankly for a moment or two before I had to remind myself that here in Coburg we don’t have a high school so the answer was - I really wish you could Gab’ but it doesn’t seem likely at the moment but you’re a sociable kid and we are sure you’ll do OK wherever you end up going to high school.

Boy, did I feel inadequate. It seemed a woeful response to such a straight forward and common place request. Saying it out loud seemed like crazy talk and something a parent just shouldn’t have to tell their child. A surge of pure emotion came over me, a mixture of utter sadness and rage. How could a place like Coburg, with such a huge number of young families, find itself without a secondary school? It just doesn’t make any sense at all.

And so with Gab’, now half way through Grade 4, we find ourselves on the brink of doing the ‘high school shuffle.’ Now you may ask, what is the ‘high school shuffle?’ This, my friends, is something of a time honoured tradition in Coburg, or at least it  has been for at least the last  six years or so which is when we were stripped of our last secondary school option. The high school shuffle is a tortuous process whereby parents start looking for solutions to deal with the fact that Coburg is ‘no high school land’. 

And it goes something like this.

Do you think we’ll be able to get Gab’ into Brunswick Secondary College or maybe Princes Hill?
Oh no, they won’t take him. We don’t live in the zone.

Maybe we could Gab’ to learn a couple of obscure instruments and a language that could get him into Princes Hill?

But I feel that is like making him into something of a trained monkey. We can’t make him love an instrument or be good at it.

How about we get him all prepped for one of those tests and get him into an accelerated learning programme at Northcote High or Uni High?

Oh, it seems wrong to put him under so much pressure and what if he doesn’t do very well? It could damage his confidence ra ra ra.

Well, we’re kind of running out of options. Not too many more schools we can look into. Maybe a private school could be the ticket?

I don’t think so. I don’t feel comfortable going down that road. I really believe in the power of a quality public secondary school.

And finally the big one rears its ugly head….

Do you think we should move somewhere else? Somewhere there’s a better choice of high schools?

I would really hate to leave Coburg. It’s such a wonderful place with a fantastic community. All our friends live here and the kids just love it.

Yeah I know all that, but what about Gab’? There’s just nowhere for him to go to high school.

So like so many parents and families in Coburg, this is where we find ourselves. A place where there’s been no forward planning for the huge influx of young families. A place that has been overlooked and forgotten by our politicians. Yet this is also a place with a huge heart and a massive willingness to embrace a high school and it’s time for politicians to stand up and listen to the parents and families of Coburg. It’s time for the bureaucratic rhetoric to stop. And for the powers that be to restore a high school to our community now. 

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Morena Milani has lived in central Coburg with her husband and 2 children, aged 9 and 7, since August 1999.  She is a co-founder of the High School for Coburg working party and as well as lobbying for a high school in our community, also acts as a spokesperson for the group.

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“It may be that in 10 or 15 years there will be need for a new school”

by Janet Grigg
Have you seen last weeks Moreland Leader? I was outraged when I read the interview with Wayne Craig Northern Metropolitan Region Director of the DEECD and he said “It may be that in 10 or 15 years there will be need for a new school.” Were you outraged too? Well, there have been 35 online responses to that interview so far.  Not all of them favourable, but I suspect that means we are starting to be heard. Would you like to add your voice to the chorus? If you think it probably wouldn't make a difference, go read this. In an election year, everything we read, every comment we make, every facebook page we "like" is monitored by those who seek our vote. Let's show them how much we care about education in Coburg!

Darren Saffin, a member of  High School for Coburg wrote this letter to the The Age and I think it sums up our issues very neatly:

Window dressing

It is all very well for the government to set up a ministerial taskforce to look at the need for a new secondary school for Coburg and surrounding suburbs, but it is clear from the Department of Education's northern metropolitan region director, Wayne Craig, that the study is really just pre-election window dressing.

Our suburb desperately needs a new high school: there are now 22 primary schools but no open-entry state high school.

Mr Craig recently told our local newspaper that the suburb might need a new school in ''10 or 15 years''. I believe that Mr Craig is just saying what Education Minister Bronwyn Pike and the department won't.

While the City of Moreland annual community indicators survey of residents shows that satisfaction with secondary schools in the area keeps falling and is at an all-time low, the department is playing games in the lead-up to the state election.

It's time for the department to start treating this community with respect and to deliver realistic secondary education options for the local community.

So, actions to take:

• add your comment to the Moreland Leader online
• "like" our facebook page and encourage your friends to do the same
• write to politicians, newspapers etc

Let's make our voices heard. Loud and strong. Our community needs a high school!

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Campaign Update - July 2010

by Cate Hall
Media Coverage
In the last few months High School for Coburg (HSC) have achieved generous print, TV and radio coverage, particularly during education week. We've been featured in the Moreland Leader, The Age, The Sunday Herald Sun, on ABC Stateline , Channel 7! and Class TV on Channel 31.

Victorian Budget Submission
We lodged a Victorian Budget Submission on behalf of HSC. Since then, more data has emerged, further strengthening the HSC case. For example, of the inner city municipalities, Moreland has the greatest expected increase of primary school aged children, followed by Darebin. In both areas this demographic trend looks set to continue, with an increase in the number of babies being born, including to first time mothers. Moreland community indicators show that satisfaction with secondary education provision in the Coburg area continues to plummet.

We will provide a more detailed analysis of this data soon.

Task Force
The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) have commissioned Spatial Vision to produce an independent “Review of Secondary School Provision for the Coburg Area".

HSC members are part of the Consultation Group, which has the role of raising issues and questions about the study and providing input into the study and its findings. We attended the first meeting on 15 June 2010 at Parliament House. This represents a new phase of "clear and transparent" communication with the DEECD and Education Minister Bronwyn Pike's office.

Our aims during the report process are to:

• Have as much of our data included as possible.
• Bring inter-connected factors such as community, environment and health to the table at every opportunity.
• Encourage a “triple bottom line” and “whole of government” approach to the solution.
• Continue to lobby, making the best use of every opportunity the process presents us with.

Thornbury High students filming an episode of Class TV for channel 31 which you can see here

Community Support
While we have the attention of the decision makers, it is vital that we show that HSC represents the broad community in calling for the reinstatement of a neighbourhood school for the benefit of the whole community.

To date we have received wonderful letters of support from school councils including Newlands, Preston West, Coburg and Pascoe Vale primary schools and from community groups including Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd (MEFL) and Parents Victoria. These letters are available to read here and will be sent to policy and decision makers at each level of government.

What you can do:

• Help add to our collection of letters of support via your connections with local primary schools, kindergartens, child care centres, community groups and businesses.
• Write to MPs, newspapers and the DEECD to explain your issues with state secondary education provision for this area.
• Write to us with your personal stories of secondary education in the Coburg area. We are interested in publishing such stories on our website to show how the lack of choice is affecting families in the Coburg area.
• Join us on Facebook. The number of our Facebook supporters will be noticed by politicians, policy and decision makers so it is an effective way to show that you support the HSC campaign. It is also easy to suggest High School for Coburg to your own Facebook friends in the area. You will also see any developments with the campaign on your Facebook newsfeed. And we love comments on Facebook!

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Why a high school for Coburg matters to you

by Peter Raymond

Whether you have school age children or not, if you live in Coburg the provision of a proper high school here in Coburg is still important for you as it would reinforce the existing sense of community that is such an important part of living here. Many of us living in Coburg know of families who feel the need to move out of the area as soon as their children reach high school age because the available options in Coburg are scant and often inappropriate for the majority of families. The loss of these families is felt by those who remain, and undermines the long term commitment to the area that would otherwise be made by departing families.

First day of school, 2010 - will any of these children have the choice of going to the same high school?

Additionally, even for those children who elect to travel outside the local area for their secondary schooling, the lack of a local community of school age peers is a major inhibitor to the formation of strong local friendship groups. Because these children often attend a variety of other schools, there is a tendency for them to stick to friendship groups centred around their own relatively distant school zone, as opposed to being in Coburg itself. This also undermines the sense of community and civic pride in our school age children.

The loss of young families from the area and the destruction of local primary school friendship groups undermines our whole community.

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Moreland council response to the HSC budget submission

HSC has received a strong and positive letter from Moreland Mayor, Cr Stella Kariofyllidis in response to our Victorian Budget Submission. She congratulates us on our work and notes that we make a "very strong case for the introduction of a year 7 intake at the Coburg Senior High School in 2012 " and asks that we advise council of the response we receive from State Government and keep council informed of our ongoing advocacy in relation to this important issue.

Letter from Moreland Council to Cate Hall - Re HSC Budget Submission

HSC thank Moreland Council for this positive response and note that, to date, the only response we have had from State Government about the budget submission is to say it has been passed on from Treasury to the Minister for Education Hon Bronwyn Pike MP. This is disappointing as we see this issue providing the perfect opportunity for an innovative Whole of Government approach - given that it impacts on Planning, Community, Education, Economy and Environment.

We also received some Moreland Council "front line" feedback. A person working the front desk at council said "High School for Coburg is the biggest issue around" 

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Look at what we've lost - School closures and mergers in the Coburg area over the last 18 years

Here is a list of secondary schools closed down or merged in the Coburg area over the past 18 years: 

Moreland City College (below)- closed 31 December 2004 - see Sacrificing Schools the the Numbers Game, The Age 04/08/2004 - the building now houses Coburg Senior High School – which caters to years 10 to 12 only. 

Coburg High School (below), see history here, - closed 31 December 1993. The buildings have been demolished and the site has had permit approval for a housing development. 

Newlands High School (below)- closed 19 December 1992 -The buildings have been demolished and the site is now part of Pentridge Prison development.

Coburg Technical School - now Coburg Special Development School .

Hadfield Secondary College – closed on 31 December 1992 - The buildings were demolished and the site is now a retirement village. 

Moreland High School – closed on 31 December 1991 - now Kangan Batman TAFE 

Oak Park Secondary School – closed 31 December 1992 

Moomba Park Secondary College, Glenroy High School, Glenroy Technical School, Hadfield Secondary College and Oak Park Secondary College merged on 1 January 1993 to form Box Forest Secondary College, now Glenroy College. 

Brunswick High School, Brunswick Technical School (below) (see here for some history) and Brunswick East High School merged on 1 January 1993 to form Brunswick Secondary College 

St Joseph’s College – closed 31 Dec 2009.

Images are from Picture Victoria, Individual links are as follows - Moreland City College, Coburg High School,  Newlands High School and Brunswick Technical School.

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