By XAVIER SMERDON
FURIOUS and confused Galvin Park Secondary College parents and teachers have been told that the school will be a “portable city” for at least the next 12 months.
At a public meeting held immediately after an extraordinary school council meeting last week, more than 200 people demanded answers and action as the school falls down around its students.
Anthony Monaghan from the school council said three buildings at the school have had Provisional Improvement Notices (PIN) placed on them. “So that has resulted in us sending a whole raft of students home now for the third week,” Mr Monaghan said. “There was a running joke that someone should have set fire to this building but it was too wet.”
Every time it rains the school continues to flood and black mould has formed in the plant room housing the heating and air conditioning system meaning that neither can be used.
Regional Director of the Western Metropolitan Region of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Katherine Henderson, was inundated with questions from angry parents in place of Member for the Western Metropolitan Region Andrew Elsbury who did not attend.
Ms Henderson said the school would stay open and would be ready for students to return next year, but she could not say whether or not the school would be completely rebuilt or merely renovated.
“We are determined that by the beginning of the next school year on this site children and teachers will be working in a set of facilities that are clean, dry and safe and there’s no question about that,” Ms Henderson said. “That may well be a combination of rooms in existing buildings that are clean dry and safe and … portables.
Ms Henderson said she was not in a position to answer any questions about exactly when or what would happen to the school in the long term.
