At the meeting I asked Minister Mitchell the following question: "As a parent, if your child was a student in a school where teachers reported their job satisfaction as 23.8 per cent (down from 52.8 per cent last year, and 58 per cent lower than the national average of 89.1 per cent), how would you feel, and how do expect parents of public schools in Griffith to feel about sending their kids to the local public high school where teaching morale has been so badly eroded by the great plan of the former minister, the person who told teachers who didn't agree with his plan to "leave town"?".

The minister declined to answer directly at the meeting and has continued to do so despite a follow up. So we must assume one of two things. Either the minister would not feel great about a child of hers attending such a school or she would feel OK about a child of hers attending such a school. But apparently she expects parents of public high school students in Griffith to be happy to send their children to a school with 23.8 per cent staff job satisfaction. By the way, this is not the staff's fault. Basically they're the same teachers who were at 58 per cent last year.

I received a response from the executive director school performance Dean White on behalf of Murat Dizdar, the DET senior officer who came with Mrs Mitchell. Mr White says, "Staff Morale - I am pleased to advise that on my visits to Murrumbidgee Regional High School staff have been have been overwhelmingly positive about their school in conversations with me."

He also indicated that the government is denying that Austin Evans, the Nationals candidate at the state election ever promised that at least one of the school sites would have a gymnasium built on it. At the parents' meeting I asked the minister whether the promised gymnasium would be delivered. Her answer, from my recollection, was "We're looking at that." She had the opportunity to tell the parents, teachers and community members that neither school would be getting gymnasia but she didn't. Why?

So if Mr White is the "executive director" responsible for "school performance" in this area, I'll ask him the same question I asked the minister: "As a parent, if your child was a student in a school where teachers reported their job satisfaction as 23.8 per cent (down from 52.8 per cent last year, and 58 per cent lower than the national average of 89.1 per cent), how would you feel, and how do expect parents of public schools in Griffith to feel about sending their kids to the local public high school where teaching morale has been so badly eroded by the great plan of the former minister, the person who told teachers who didn't agree with his plan to "leave town"?"

De-merge the schools! It won't be any harder than merging them originally was.

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