Caulfield Grammar School selling $1500 naming rights to new stadium seats
While one Caulfield school relies on sausage sizzles and icy poles to raise a meagre fundraising total, another school nearby is charging $1500 for naming rights to seats at its $25 million dollar stadium.
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Olympic medallist Mack Horton’s alma mater Caulfield Grammar School is offering $1500 naming rights on a seat at the school’s new state of the art swimming pool.
There are 273 seats, with the potential to raise nearly $410,000 if all the tax deductible $1500 payments with accompanying plaques are taken up at the Glen Eira Rd aquatic and wellbeing centre.
Just 4km away Caulfield South Primary School is enviously eyeing all the development in and around it at schools, as it beavers away at its own fundraising efforts which raised $33,500 this year by selling icy poles on Fridays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day stalls and events and casual clothes days. Democracy snags and a ladies’ high tea were among the big successes.
This year Caulfield South Primary School was able to snare an extra $10,000 from two sponsors, including a local real estate firm.
In recent weeks, Caulfield South Primary School council lamented its struggles to attract funding to upgrade the school.
School council president Melanie Gordon met Caulfield MP David Southwick to discuss the need to upgrade facilities, including a purpose-built gymnasium.
“School council is aware of the disappointment of many parents when they observe the extensive building works happening in surrounding schools,” the newsletter said.
Mr Southwick, a Liberal MP, said that the funding received in his Caulfield electorate was tiny compared to that of nearby Bentleigh a seat held by Labor’s Nick Staikos.
He said Bentleigh had scored $51.34 million over four years to 2018-19. That includes significant expenditure at McKinnon Secondary and Bentleigh colleges.
He said over the same period Caulfield received $10.5 million.
“Local Caulfield schools are growing at an increasing rate but funding isn’t keeping pace,” he said.
“Year after year under (premier) Daniel Andrews, Caulfield schools have been consistently overlooked and forced to fight for basics such as functional toilets.
“I have been meeting with local schools to discuss their needs and will continue to campaign to ensure Caulfield receives its fair share of school funding”
Parents Victoria executive officer Gail McHardy said the battle for funds was a “despicable downfall of our state expenditure system”.
“Each MP gets a certain amount of discretionary funding for school infrastructure in the public system. Schools within that area then have to pitch against each other to try to get funds for what we would consider basic upgrades. With a limited amount it means that some schools will always miss out, particularly in needier areas. Depressingly, these schools then see wealthy public schools in other areas getting additional funding for facility upgrades and additions, when their students don’t even have one netball court, let alone three new ones. Or toilets with closing doors, let alone a new theatre,” she said.
She also pointed to unfairness between the funding that Caulfield Grammar gets and Caulfield South Primary School via the student resource standard national funding model.
“In the meantime, the overfunded private schools continue with their oblivious, entitled attitude and the public system remains, for the most part, underfunded,” she said.
Back at Caulfield Grammar, where fees range from $20,000 in kindergarten to $33,000 in Year 12, so far around 84 seats have been sold.
The seat sale is being promoted to current and past students through the Caulfield Grammarians Association.
Caulfield Grammarians Association president Andrew Aitken has been spruiking the seats among the strong alumni.
“Our family is extremely excited about the opening of the new aquatic centre. Having been to the school myself (1992), and now very involved as president of the Caulfield Grammarians Association, and a future parent, we were only too happy to support what will be an incredible facility for many years to come,” he said.
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When the aquatic and wellbeing centre went out to tender it was estimated to be worth $20 million to $30 million.
Designed by Peddle Thorp, it boasts a 50 metre pool with a movable floor. The pool depth is consistently 2m deep to allow for two water polo fields of play of 25m by 20m.
There will be a spin room and provision for yoga, pilates and meditation.
The building connects to the Lindsay Thompson Sports Centre, named for the former Victorian premier who attended the school.
Mack Horton attended the school between 2000 and 2014.
In 2016 he took out the 400 metres freestyle on the first night of the swimming program in Rio Olympics.