NSW Covid: Rural boarding school students stung by state lockdowns

Rural NSW boarding school students are being unfairly caught in multiple lockdowns despite no risk of Covid-19 on their families’ remote farms.

Boarding students from remote NSW are being left to hike across state lines following snap border closures and some have quit school altogether as the pressure of multiple lockdowns becomes “too much”.

For more than a year, students who travel interstate for school have been repeatedly caught up in sudden border closures, forcing parents to scramble for exemptions to either bring their child home or send them back to class as there’s no national plan for boarders.

Capri Tumolero, 15 was forced to walk across the bridge from Echuca to Moama when Victoria went into lockdown on Friday because her parents in NSW weren’t allowed to cross the border to collect her from the bus.

Capri Tumolero from Hay Shire had to walk over the bridge at Echuca/Moama on Friday when Victoria suddenly locked down as her parents were not allowed to cross the border to collect her from the bus on the other side. Picture: Supplied

The Year 10 Ballarat Grammar student lives in the Hay Shire in NSW, and under the current rules her father Aldo said she will have to isolate for 14-days before being allowed to return to school in Victoria once it comes out of lockdown.

“If we could get an exemption she could get back to school sooner,” he said.

“If our region was a bit of a hotspot like Armidale, that would be understandable, but we’re nowhere near anything and we haven’t got any cases.”

Mr Tumolero said rural boarding students had suffered “enough ups and downs”.

“Year 10 is crunch time, and I think going forward if we’re going to have more of these spontaneous lockdowns, we need to get these things sorted and have a plan.”

In the state’s far north west, Michelle Mort is unsure how to get her 18-year-old son Charlie home from Geelong Grammar to the family property 150km from Burke amid the lockdown.

Ms Mort said a number of factors, but “particularly the impact of Covid” prompted Charlie to decide to finish Year 12 early without an unscored ATAR.

“He has decided to finish school and come home, but we can’t go get him from Victoria anyway now,” she said.

Liam Butler, Ollie Fitzgerald, Skye Fitzgerald and Larah Butler from Balranald Shire remote properties in NSW. The students are luckily in the cross border bubble with Victoria so when lockdown ends they should be able to return to boarding school without quarantine. Picture: Supplied

Ms Mort said even last year when her two sons were at boarding school she tried to apply for them to be able to drive themselves directly from Victoria over the border without stopping but was rejected.

“We’ve just been scratching our heads trying to figure out what to do with each change,” she said.

“It’s a big deal sending your kids away for school and the last two years have made that about 10 times harder.”

Nationals Senator Perin Davey has been lobbying on behalf of rural boarding students. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Isolated Children’s Parents Association federal president Alana Moller said all families wanted was a “consistent” system to be able to send their child away to boarding school with “certainty”.

“The students we’re talking about are already geographically isolated … so the idea of ‘isolating’ at home between terms or when school shuts is very possible,” she said.

“We’re not looking to open the flood gates, this is only a few hundred children.”

Ms Moller said many rural families had no choice but to send their children to distant schools with boarding facilities.

“This isn’t elite families, they simply don’t have other options,” she said.

Children in remote NSW who travel to Sydney for school have also been caught up in the chaos.

Asked if he would work with his state counterparts to develop a national approach for remote and rural boarding students, Health Minister Greg Hunt told The Daily Telegraph: “yes”.

Nationals NSW Senator Perin Davey has also written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison asking that a “nationally consistent set of rules” allowing regional and remote students to travel interstate for school or university be developed.

Ms Davey said every lockdown every family was “living in a constant state of anxiety”.

“A child who commenced high school in 2020 in Victoria has not yet completed a full term without a lockdown,” she said.

“A child sitting their Year 12 exams this year has not done a full term at school during the crucial final two years.”