Boarding schools seek national COVID plan
Parents and prestigious boarding schools are fighting for the rights of their rural students after some, including pupils who had just started high school, had to go 20 weeks without seeing their families.
Education
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Rural parents of boarding school students are pleading for a national plan for quarantine exemptions in the face of ever-changing border restrictions amid COVID-19.
Isolated Children’s Parents Association NSW President Claire Butler, the peak body for rural parents, are calling for a consistent national plan for boarding school students as parents fear they won’t be able to send their children back to school next year.
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She said the last-minute decisions on border and quarantine exemptions for rural and isolated families had taken a significant toll on students and their parents, who feared they would face the same next year as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
“COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon, we don’t want our parents to relive these journeys every time the holidays come,” she said.
Gravesend, NSW, mother Kate Warby, whose 12-year-old son boards at Nudgee College, said parents were calling for a national approach because they do not wish for any family to encounter the undue stress and anxiety again when they go back in 2021.
“In the event of future outbreaks, how is it going to be handled? We can’t just have border closures all the time for small outbreaks – the frustration and anxiety encountered by many families is unnecessary,” she said.
Queensland Boarding schools also echoed the calls for the plan which could provide parents and students certainty in case borders close again.
Nudgee College Principal Peter Fullagar said there needs to be a consistent, national approach that provides a travel exemption to rural and remote boarding students and their families.
“The previous two decisions to give exemptions to interstate borders for the June/July and September school holidays were delivered too late,” he said.
“This caused undue stress to both parents and students, some as young as 12 years old.”
St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School echoed the calls for consistency and long-term strategies for boarding school students.
The Glennie School Principal Ms Mary Anne Evans said the school also called for consistent plans after “anxiety experienced had impacted people’s mental health and wellbeing”.
Stuartholme Principal Kristen Sharpe said the school supports a consistent plan that would remove “unnecessary stress and anxiety on children”.
She said the prospect of being separated from their families “was incredibly stressful and upsetting” for students, and some pupils who had just started high school may not have seen their families for 20 weeks.
Minister for Regional Education Andrew Gee said he would be consulting the peak boarding school bodies in the coming weeks to develop a “caring compassionate and commonsense” uniform plan but it would be up to states and territories to sign up.
“While states and territories have taken some very constructive steps forward since National Cabinet looked at this issue, our work is not yet done,” he said.
“Christmas holidays are just around the corner and we need to make sure our country does not let these students and their families down.”
A Queensland Health spokesperson said they understood and sympathised that this is a very difficult time for boarding school communities.
“While we cannot foresee the future directions the pandemic might take, and things can change at any time, we are doing everything we can to make the border restrictions and exemptions system as timely, consistent and fair as possible,” a spokesperson said.
