The following is a letter by a member of the Stop Shepparton Super-School group in response to a refusal by the local Independent MP, Suzanna Sheed, to discuss the super-school proposal.
The Executive Committee of Save Our Schools No Transition in Shepparton has been trying for months to obtain a meeting with our local Independent MP, Suzanna Sheed, in order to present to her the reasons and concerns of members of the community that are against having one huge super school in Shepparton with no choice for schooling and poor communication about its planning.
We have been aggressively refused a meeting with Ms. Sheed. She needs to remember that she was elected to represent her constituents.
I have never been so rudely spoken to as I was on Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019, when I visited her office. To my enquiry for an appointment, I was aggressively told there would be no appointment; that my friend who was with me has been told there will be no appointments to speak with Ms. Sheed.
I was taken aback and not given an opportunity to say why I was there. Even had I said I was there regarding an informed discussion about the super school and its likely effects on our students, I would have expected to have been treated with respect. I have never been to Ms Sheed’s office before to seek her counsel and I never will again, along with my vote which will be directed to someone who is prepared to treat their constituents with dignity.
I am heartily tired of leaders, educators and school councils making decisions regarding the future education of our children, who have never bothered to research the proposed model’s failings both in Australia and overseas. There are no studies in Australia into the size of schools, yet more than 57 overseas after both USA and UK schools failed to deliver. The schools-within- a-school model was introduced to cost-efficiently mend the failing large schools model. It was a spectacular failure 20-30 years ago.
There is a great deal of information available to those who choose to investigate and none of it supports what is being introduced to Shepparton, yet for the sake of new buildings to hang their hats on, they charge ahead blindly ill-informed by propaganda with no substance.
Colleen Jones