$10m for school

By Kath Gannaway
PERSISTENCE and patience has paid off for Healesville High School with the announcement in last week’s budget of $10million funding.
Seymour MP Ben Hardman was clearly delighted to be able to deliver the good news to the school community.
The staff, school council and wider school community have put a great deal of effort into planning and lobbying for much-needed improvements to the school’s facilities and their efforts have now paid off,” he said.
Mr Hardman said the funding would provide for new classrooms, administration, library and specialist facilities.
In effect, with the science and technology facility build just a few years ago, it will provide a new school.
The school was invited into the Building Futures process last year, the first step towards obtaining funding.
That announcement followed years of lobbying for redevelopment of the school, which was built in the 1960s as a temporary facility.
Principal George Perini welcomed the announcement saying it was a major step forward for education in Healesville and would make a big difference to student learning.
“We will have rooms that are contemporary with student learning and teaching,” he said.
“It will make a huge difference.
“We will have rooms that are comfortable, spacious, appropriate for learning and that is what our community deserves,’ he said.
Mr Perini said plans had been drawn up when stage one (the science and technology building) of the master plan was built but to do justice to the opportunity now available a review would be done of those plans to ensure the very best outcome.
He said although full details of what was planned for the school had not been fully revealed, it would include specialist facilities, classrooms, administration facilities and a library.
“Basically, it means everything other than stage one – ultimately we are rebuilding the school,” he said.
School captains Joseph (Joe) Kay and Clare Macpherson will not get to enjoy the modern school buildings, but they said they were delighted for students who would follow in their footsteps.
“We’ve had the advantage of going from the old classrooms (science and technology) into the new ones and it made such a difference to our learning and enjoyment of those subjects so I am sure these students will also appreciate just what an improvement new facilities are,” he said.
Clare said just having classrooms which were warm in winter and cool in summer would be a great improvement and something everyone would benefit from.
Mr Hardman said the State Government budget boost of $402 million would deliver new school buildings to stimulate the economy now and deliver on their plan to rebuild, renovate or extend every government school in the state.
The budget also provided for funding for the rebuilding of schools at Marysville, Middle Kinglake and Strathewen.
Badger Creek Primary School also had good news with a $2m grant from the Federal Government under the 21st Century Library and Learning Neighbourhood program. More page 3