New school bid

By Paul Pickering
CHILDREN with additional needs in Ferntree Gully have to make a four-hour round-trip by bus to attend the nearest specialist school in Donvale.
Ferntree Gully mother Margaret Knoops revealed last week that the arduous daily commute made it nearly impossible for her 12-year-old son, Michael, to concentrate once he arrived at the Heatherwood School.
Ms Knoops is among a group of parents calling for the Department of Education to establish a specialist school facility in the Knox area.
She says that the Heatherwood School is the only viable secondary school option for Michael – who has a mild intellectual disability.
As it is, Heatherwood is at capacity, so the shuttle bus that Michael catches to and from school is delayed by a series of pick-ups on the way to Donvale.
“When he gets to school he’s already tired because he’s been on the bus for two hours, and when he comes home he’s angry and hungry (because the students are not allowed to eat on the bus),” Ms Knoops said.
With no room for expansion at Heatherwood’s Donvale campus, the possibility of a move to the vacant Ferntree Gully Secondary College site on Dorset Road was raised earlier this year.
The proposal was met with resistance by some parents within the school community and the decision was made to stay at the current location on Springvale Road.
Ms Knoops says the discussions about a possible move buoyed the spirits of a number of parents living in Ferntree Gully, Boronia, Scoresby and Rowville.
“We got excited because we thought it would mean less time spent on buses,” she said.
Once the proposed relocation was shelved, the parents decided to contact Ferntree Gully MP Nick Wakeling in a bid to raise the issue with the Department of Education.
In June, Mr Wakeling wrote to the then Minister of Education, John Lenders, to inform him of the parents’ predicament.
After being advised that there has been an independent review of the need for specialist school facilities in Melbourne’s east ongoing since 2005, Mr Wakeling sought to expedite the process by raising the issue in Parliament earlier this month.
Mr Wakeling said that the recent talk of relocation had heightened awareness of the need for a facility closer to the Knox community.
“The possibility of a move raised the parents’ expectations and now that has been taken away,” Mr Wakeling explained last week.
“The Department of Education is conducting an investigation, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t provide any comfort for families that are saying they don’t want to wait for another two years of reviews.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education could not say when the review was likely to be completed, nor could she reveal findings of the review so far.
While the future use of the Ferntree Gully Secondary School site is still being considered, the spokeswoman said the Department of Education was preparing to demolish sections of the former Ferntree Gully Primary School site, which is also on Dorset Road.