Two Yass Valley schools over spacial capacity

The NSW Opposition, under freedom of information, obtained documents that show one in three NSW public schools were now either at full capacity or well above.

The schools identified in the Yass Valley are Yass High School with 111 per cent and Sutton Public School at 110 per cent.

While the documents show the school’s teaching spaces, permanent and demountables are utilised, it doesn’t affect enrollment or teaching capabilities.

Local mother Gillian Bucknell has been working with the Yass High P&C for over four years, to extend the facilities.

“We have exhausted every avenue, we were asked to get a petition together and presented it to Pru Goward [State member] we did and still we haven’t heard back,” she said. “In 2012 before the time of the school fire the [Education] minister provided us with a Master Plan, it showed the inadequacies in size, yet nothing has been done.”

In June of 2015, Yass High School P&C met Ms Goward to hand over the 2000 signatures, 1500 more than requested, in a petition to secure funding for the upgrades.  

While the High School was originally designed for 250 students it now has 500, it hasn’t received upgrades since the 1950s. 

Around 60 year 7 students were unable to attend the year 12’s final assembly on Friday, September 23 due to the Hall’s capacity. The independent analysis shows the Hall requires approximately double its present size.  

Ms Goward said in response to the leaked figures that the Department monitors population and development trends to plan to meet enrollment needs.

She said while they are pushing hard to put money through for Yass High School there has been significant backlogs for education upgrades and the NSW Government is making investments in education infrastructure in the Eastern and Southern suburbs of Sydney.

“Since 2011, over $4.9 billion has been allocated to school infrastructure and maintenance, included funding for more than 1,500 new permanent classrooms, which will provide almost 29,000 additional student places,” she said.  

“With the population increase in the Yass Valley it will put us in better stead to get the funding for these upgrades.”

Ms Goward will be meeting with Sutton Primary School next week to discuss the necessary improvements to the shortage in space. 

During this time, 32 new or relocated public schools have been funded and 67 major upgrade projects announced, none within the Yass Valley.