School’s injecting room plea: We’re not a political football

They’re right next door to Melbourne’s supervised injecting room but Richmond West Primary School has pleaded for lobbyists not to use it as a “political football”. Now a key group has hit back.

Richmond residents wanting the medically supervised injecting room moved have hit back at Richmond West Primary School claims that their campaign is undermining the school.

The school has broken its silence, asking not to be used as a political football and to be left to get on with educating children, many of them from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Richmond West Primary School, at the foot of the public housing towers, has been at the centre of discontent around the Lennox St facility with various groups citing safety in and around the school in a campaign to move the room.

But the school, which has a highly regarded bilingual program in Vietnamese and Mandarin which sees students passing closer schools to enrol, has chosen not to buy into the often angry discussions.

School council president Jim Castles, in a question to the Yarra City Council, gave a rare insight into the tricky situation the school found itself and the toll it was taking on the school community.

Mr Castles said while various departments had provided funding for lighting and other physical improvements, the community was in pain.

“It is actually having a deleterious effect on the school right now,” he said.

He said the discussion was distracting for the school and it was sapping the limited resources of the school and the principal.

Richmond West Primary School is next to North Richmond Community Health. Picture: Nicole Garmston

But yesterday the MSIR Resident Action Committee doubled down on its criticism, denying that anything it was doing was impacting the school negatively.

“To be very clear to all interested parties, the MSIR Resident Action Committee has never attempted to “provoke” or “petition” the Richmond West Primary School,” it said.

“Nor are we in any way engaged with the school that would have a “deleterious effect” on its running.

“Any impact on school functioning is a direct result of the injecting room’s location, and not the community members who are concerned about, and want to address, the associated risks.”

MRAC said in June, this year, it contacted the school principal and school council on behalf of its member parents and families.

It sought information about risk assessment and management practices around the operation of the school.

MRAC said that information and a request to meet was declined.

It said individual parents might still have continued to express their concerns.

In his address to Yarra council earlier this month, Mr Castles said the “school wanted the politics out of the school and the school out of the politics”.

“During the last couple of years there has been a lot of discussion around the school about our near neighbour to the north, the injecting room, and the school has chosen to focus its energy on its primary task which is thriving children, that is what we are all about,” he said.

“But we are continually getting petitioned and provoked to take a position and we have taken a view on the school council and the principal that it is not going to be to the benefit of the children to do so.

“It is a divisive issue and the spectrum of perspectives are held within the parent body and it is a very political issue and our view is that the politics of this issue should not be inflicted upon children and that a school is not the right forum to hold political discourse.”

Mr Castles, who addressed the council meeting 10 days ago, said despite the various improvements more needed to be done.

“The pain remains, it is a human issue,” he said.

Mr Castles asked if the council could provide a forum so the community discussion could be taken away from the school.

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Mr Castles said the school, which draws children from around 25 language backgrounds, was already doing the heavy lifting in trying to break the link between disadvantage and educational outcomes.

“The school is nested on the housing estate and that is an area with a lot of disadvantage and the school is already doing a lot of heavy lifting around those disadvantaged people, the kids there on the estate We take them in without prejudice, on merit and at face value and we give them a chance to break that cycle ..,” he said.

The Yarra council said there were moves underway through the state government to establish a forum for community input.

The state government has provided funding to the school for security.

The Yarra City Council has committed more than $300,000 to clean up the streets and nearly $180,000, matched by the State Government, for a youth hub in the housing estate.

Money is also being spent to improve Victoria Street, once famous as Melbourne’s Little Saigon but now fallen on hard times.

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