Brimbank families fight for new Derrimut high school

Students in a suburb in Melbourne’s west must travel for hours to get to school, and fuming parents say it’s high time a new school is built.

Students in Melbourne’s west must travel for hours to get to and from school and parents say a new school closer to home is desperately needed. Picture: Kristi Miller

Teenagers in one of Melbourne’s booming western suburbs are being forced to travel for more than two hours a day on packed buses to get to and from school.

The problem is so bad frustrated Derrimut families say they’re considering moving away from the area when their children finish primary school.

Secondary school aged children living in Derrimut have two choices of government schools depending on the zone they live in; Victoria University Secondary College and Sunshine College.

There are currently two primary schools in Derrimut, and council figures released last year show public high schools in neighbouring areas were not growing fast enough to meet rising demand as students transitioned from primary to secondary schooling.

This meant thousands of students may struggle to find a high school to go to.

Brimbank Mayor Ranka Rasic said secondary school students in Derrimut travelled longer to get to school than their peers in other parts of Brimbank.

“Derrimut students cannot easily walk or cycle to either secondary school, and wait lists for school operated bus services between Derrimut and both schools leave many families to rely on private transport,” she said.

“We need to urgently address Derrimut’s limited public transport connectivity, including during peak school travel periods, and improve dedicated school bus services between Derrimut and zoned schools.”

But Derrimut dad Jimmy Hogben said a school was desperately needed, not just improved transport options.

“My son takes the bus to school and he’s leaving here at about 7am to get to school on time,” Mr Hogben said.

“There was a plot of land behind the private primary school in Derrimut that was sold, that would have been the perfect place for (a high school).”

Mr Hogben said he’d seen teens turned away from packed public buses during their morning commute, blowing out their travel time further and potentially making them late.

He also said he worried about the safety implications of the long commute and the impact it had on his son’s studies.

“There’s three prisons and no high school (in this electorate). What message does that send our children?”

Karina Arias Eskander, a mother living in Deer Park, right next to Derrimut, said the school situation was “desperate”.

She said she worried everyday about what high school to send her daughter to and she was only in grade one.

“The lack of secondary schools around here is a real concern,” Ms Eskander said.

High school students in Derrimut can’t walk or ride to school because they’re too far away, and peak hour public bus services are already at capacity. Picture: Lea Tracee

“This is the future of our kids and it’s not fair that all the great schools in Melbourne are mainly in the east and our kids miss out or spend most of their time travelling back and forth.”

Demographic data shows Brimbank’s population is expected to rise by more than 11 per cent by 2041.

Brimbank Mayor Ranka Rasic said the number of secondary school students in Derrimut and surrounding suburbs was predicted to boom by 30 per cent in the next decade.

Recently elected Harvester Ward Councillor Trung Luu said the need for a new school in Derrimut was one of the main issues people in his electorate raised with him during his campaign.

Improved public transport connections would help families and students in the short term, but he said a high school was vital in the long run.

“The south west corner there (of Brimbank), it’s sort of a forgotten little thing,” Cr Luu said.

“It’s not reasonable, and also from what residents are saying, the population is growing so rapidly.”

On Facebook, angry parents told the Leader they spent hours stuck in traffic each day during the school pick up and drop off if their children couldn’t take the bus.

Others said there were no good secondary school options and they planned to move away from the area when their children reached high school age.

“We are moving back to the east due to a lack of schools, schools that are very full and less choice in general,” one woman wrote.

“We just need more investment into our children, it’s just not fair. Such a diverse area and it’s being neglected. The western suburbs are always an after thought,” another woman wrote.

A government spokesperson said the route 400 Sunshine station bus ran through Derrimut every 20 minutes during peak periods, ferrying passengers to Deer Park trains.

Bus connections in Melbourne’s west were also being reviewed, they said, and information provided by the government noted the state’s schooling needs would be reviewed as part of budget preparations.

No funding commitment was flagged for a new school in Derrimut.

“We’re connecting Sunshine better than ever before, with a huge transport hub giving the community direct access to Melbourne Airport, the Metro Tunnel, the regional centres of Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo and right across suburban Melbourne,” the spokesperson said.

The Leader last year launched its Clean Up Brimbank campaign to shine a light on issues related to crime, education, health, unemployment and the environment.

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