Parents In A Lather
Newcastle Herald
Friday March 2, 2007
PARENTS of children attending the small Mount Kanwary Public School near Raymond Terrace are buying paper towels and soap for the students' toilets because the State Government is not supplying them.
The issue is one of a growing number of concerns the school's P&C wants to raise with Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt.They are also angered they will lose a teacher at the end of the year.The issues have been raised with independent candidate for Maitland Peter Blackmore, who said numerous attempts by parents to contact Ms Tebbutt for a meeting have been to no avail."I'm calling on the minister to meet with these parents when she comes here to open Ashtonfield Public School next week. The department should be supplying these items, not the parents," he said. The Herald contacted Ms Tebbutt's office for comment yesterday. A spokesman said the only comment he could make was that the Mount Kanwary school will keep its three teachers for 2007. The school has 51 pupils, one short of the mandatory number to allow it three teachers. This week, the Education Department told the school it would cut one of its teachers. However, the department said later it would receive "supplementary" teaching support that would allow a third teacher to remain for the rest of this year.Mr Blackmore said the "double take" shows the Government's panic and damage control on an issue it would rather not have surface before the March 24 election.The school's P&C vice-president, Janine Thomson, said parents and the P&C have poured more than $30,000 into school equipment over the past five years, funding projects such as a new fence, air-conditioning, computers, literacy books, fans, flyscreens and playground equipment."You don't mind doing the fund-raising and getting improvements done but when it comes to paper towels and soap in the kids' toilets it gets a bit much," she said.She said parents would confront Ms Tebbutt at Ashtonfield Public School next week.
© 2007 Newcastle Herald