The Griffith high school merger consultation process has failed to deliver a concrete consensus of the city’s secondary education preferences.
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The community has been divided over the best way forward since the announcement of the two options to change secondary schooling in the area in October 2016.
Proposed option one offered $45 million in funding from the state government to merge the city’s high schools, while option two offered $10 million to upgrade existing sites.
The report ‘The options for the future of secondary education in the city’ reflected this division finding while 21 per cent of respondents supported option one, only 29 per cent supported option two.
“A relatively small proportion of the Griffith community expressed strong opposition to Option 1 [sic] but whilst this view was strongly and vocally expressed, it did not appear to be widespread,” the report read.
“On balance, it is judged that whilst a relatively small section of the community was strongly opposed to a new high school being built, the majority was open minded or supported change to the status quo.”
Authors of the report, Sauce Communications, noted response rates to the various methods of community consultation were not as high as they had expected.
Just 159 people attending workshops, 42 attending public information booths and 416 contributors to the online questionnaire.
The lack of involvement by community members was noted by authors as indicating “the bulk of the wider community did not hold strong views on the subject.”
While the report found no consensus amongst respondents a number of key issues and themes were identified by authors, who noted a majority of respondents saw “the need for changes in at least some areas to enhance the secondary education available to the Griffith community.”
Issues raised included a lack of critical mass to support wide subject choice, insufficiently high expectations of students and what they can achieve, students not achieving to a high enough standard academically or vocationally and and ‘us and them’ stigma perceived to apply between the two high schools, to name only a few. Respondents also called for improved teacher retention and a more consistent approach to behavioural standards, bullying and discipline.
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