Hundreds of passionate locals took to the streets last Friday in protest of Shepparton’s new super-school.
Armed with placards reading ‘No Choice For Shepparton’, ‘Save Our Schools’, ‘Answer Our Questions’ and ‘Super Schools Spit Out Fools’, the group marched to the chant of “No more super school!”
The protest started at the Department of Education and Training building near the corner of High Street and Corio Street and continued around the road on to Wyndham Street and interrupting traffic, before finishing up in front of Suzanna Sheed’s office.
The protest was led by Robin Boschetti, founder of the ‘Stop Shepparton’s New Super School!’ Facebook group. Amassing over 2000 members in less than a month, the group is filled with local parents and teachers who are concerned about the future of local children.
During the march, we spoke to passionate local mother, Linda, who has a Year 7 student at Wanganui.
“We spent years trying to find the right secondary school for both of our children to attend,” Linda said.
“The choice of principal and the on-flow of each school’s philosophies was a big factor in deciding what school we wanted our kids to attend and now we have no say in that, it feels like a dictatorship,” Linda said.
“We’re also very worried about bullying. We know people who moved houses to be zoned in the right area for their school of choice and now they have been stripped of that choice and will be lumped back in with the same group of bullies. These kids are going to be basically jailed with their offender.”
Many of those present for the protest believe that there has not been enough consultation with parents throughout the process, many left with their concerns and questions unanswered.
With the rain not slowing down the crowd at all, the protest approached Ms Sheed’s office. Word was beginning to spread that she was on holiday due to parliamentary winter recess.
Several letters were left with her office as the organisers continued collecting signatures for a petition with numbers now in the thousands.
Shepparton’s education has played an important role for Ms Sheed throughout her time in office. In April last year, Ms Sheed welcomed Victoria Government’s announcement of $20.5 million towards the Shepparton Education Plan, which is to help fund the first stage of the new super school.
“Members of this community have been fighting for investment in our secondary schools for nearly thirty years and now we have finally been able to achieve an outcome that will provide so many opportunities for our kids,” Ms Sheed said.
“The Shepparton Education Plan was designed to support children from birth through to 18 years, and there will be more work in the early years and primary school sectors as we move forward.”
