Christian Brothers College throws Presentation College a lifeline after shock closure news
Girls’ toilets and changerooms are among the big changes coming to Christian Brothers College, with the boys’ school confirming it would open its doors to the devastated schoolgirls of Presentation College Windsor when their institution closes at the end of next year.
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Presentation College Windsor has been thrown a lifeline, with the governing body of brother school Christian Brothers College announcing the school will become coeducational.
Edmund Rice Education Australia confirmed the school will go co-ed for at least two years.
“CBC is privileged to be able to immediately offer girls in senior years a pathway to complete their VCE and VCAL studies after the closure of their College,” a statement said.
“This means that girls currently at PCW in Years 10 and 11 2019, will have the opportunity complete their secondary education in a shared venture at CBC.
“CBC St Kilda and Presentation College Windsor have enjoyed many years of strong friendship and partnership in the provision of Catholic education.”
It comes after Presentation College Windsor’s shock announcement on Monday that its doors would be closed by the end of 2020.
The schools already share VCE classes together, along with productions and dance events.
Edmund Rice Education Australia said it was committed to working in partnership with the St Kilda East Parish, to continue to provide high-quality Catholic education for boys and girls.
“Exploration of how this new and exciting partnership might unfold will begin immediately,” the statement read.
“EREA’s decision to begin this work has the full backing of the Catholic Education Office Melbourne, St Mary’s Parish St Kilda East and the Presentation Sisters.”
Principal of CBC Gerald Bain-King told the Herald Sun he was “really pleased” to help out current Year 10 and 11 Presentation students.
“Hopefully they see us as an option they can embrace as they get over the grief over being part of PCW,” he said.
“Schools are complex cultures, it’s not just learning maths or English, you are growing up in an environment, the grief is about losing that environment.”
As for practical changes such as toilets and changerooms, Mr Bain-King said the school would have to “work through” those practicalities.
“As we find out the number of girls who may join us in 18 months, we would have to make changes to our school,” he said.
“We didn’t have a five-year plan for this to happen, this has unfolded before us.
“We are trying to prioritise our planning.”
The Presentation College Parent’s Association sent a text to parents saying they were grateful for the CBC announcement and it was a “great relief” that currently enrolled students would have a familiar place to finish out their VCE.
“The PCW PA is happy the PCW community will be working with the potential new operators of the combined schools... to create a new future going forward for the most important stakeholder group — our daughters,” the text message read.
“We look forward to working to secure the future of our current Year 7, 8 and 9 students.”
The text went on to say the news of the closure had been stressful for all students and their families.
“The communications and unfolding of events over the past few days have been distressing for our girls and families.
“Perhaps now, with direct interation with a new partner, we can create an even better school that is affordable, inclusive and be up to the challenge of providing a 21st-century catholic education.”
The CBC principal could not say if the co-educational program would last past 2021.
“Should we go down that road, we must offer the best form of boys’ and girls’ education,” he said.
“The possibility is there, there is a lot of planning that needs to go on so that we do this properly.
“Should Edmund Rice Australia go down the road of committing us to a co-ed model, we would want to make sure we had something that enabled us to meet the appropriate needs of each gender.
“We are very aware girls and boys have specific needs, we need to think about how that may occur.
WHY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS ARE STRUGGLING TO STAY AFLOAT
“For example, the maturation rates of teenage boys are girls are vastly different. We will still have to plan so those things are taken into account.”
CBC alumni Eddie McGuire, who graduated in 1982, said he was “delighted” the two schools had come together.
“I hope now it gives the two communities an opportunity to do something that is overdue, combine and become a really great co-ed school,” he said.
“I’m delighted the two schools have been able to come together, for a number of years I thought this was the way to go.
“With the right emphasis and marketing, it could provide magnificent education, artistic and sporting opportunities for boys and girls all over Melbourne.
“It is great for kids from working class areas who can’t go to the APS schools, the opportunity for aspiration to go to a tremendous campus like that, there’s so much upside for this going forward.
“There is a tremendous spirit in the CBC fraternity.”
Project manager assisting the sisters, Michael Elphick, today said Presentation College Windsor is categorically closing its doors in 2020.
“PCW is closing,” he said. “We need to close. “The sisters are not in a position to continue to govern, or support the school after 2020.
“Conversations are well advanced however, with our Catholic partners, about what may emerge in this precinct from 2020.”
EMOTIONS RUN HIGH AT FIERY MEETING
Desperate parents last night demanded answers in a last-ditch bid to save the doomed Presentation College Windsor, as students yesterday shed tears over their school’s demise.
A crisis meeting was convened last night after news that Victoria’s second-oldest Catholic girls’ school, in Melbourne’s inner south, would close at the end of 2020.
The parents, who were blindsided on Monday by the news that their daughters’ school is set to close at the end of 2020, discussed ways to prevent the Catholic school from closing.
An earlier plan to set up a $2 million fighting fund to save the college was put on hold after it was revealed that the school could become part of a coeducational “precinct’’.
An agenda for the meeting, organised by the PCW Parents’ Assocation, showed the school would not close without a fight.
Retaining staff amid the turmoil was also made a priority.
“We face a large mountain to climb that we will face and climb,’’ the agenda states.
”Our PCW students come first, our children’s learning and wellbeing is the priority.
“As parents we remain passionate to the Save PCW cause whilst encouraging out children to maintain their learning and the lessons of persistence, resilience and respect.
“We can make this a learning and life experience for our children.”
Disgruntled parents also launched their bid to “save PCW”.
The Presentation sisters are understood to be “stepping away from the school”.
The anger and disappointment was palpable as parents aired their grievances about the school’s closure and the way information was communicated to parents.
“There is something very dodgy going on in the background here,” one mother said.
“At what point was the mental health and wellbeing of our kids considered in the past couple of days,” a father said. “The Catholic guilt lives on.”
“All schools have cut off their [enrolment] dates,” another mother said.
Parents were concerned about the quality of schooling for the students who stay at the school.
“How are they going to ensure that the girls who stay next year have teachers and are supported?” one mother asked.
“The good teachers are going to move on, potentially pretty quickly,” Mark Klose said.
“The sisters are aware that some good teachers have already left.”
Parents lamented the changing messages coming from the school.
“[The school] see this meeting tonight as an attempt to change their decision,” Mr Klose said.
This statement was met with guffaws and heckling.
“I understand [CBC] are looking at transitioning the school grounds to a coeducational school from 2021,” Mr Klose said.
“That’s a different message to what we were told yesterday,” Stieve De Lance said.
“The message keeps changing.”
“The education minister, Stonnington council and the local MP didn’t know the school was closing.”
TEARS AS COMMUNITY GRAPPLES WITH SHUT DOWN
Students and adults were seen crying and embracing outside Presentation College Windsor’s school gate on Tuesday morning after being told of its shock closure.
The school had an 8.30am assembly for students after late Monday’s announcement it will close at the end of 2020.
Parents were told by email after the final school bell.
Falling enrolments are being blamed for the 146-year-old institution’s demise.
But on Tuesday afternoon, principal Felina Virgato confirmed some good news for current year 10 students.
They would be able to complete their VCE studies through to 2021 via nearby Christian Brothers College.
The decision to close Presentation comes during a $2 million joint project between the State Government’s School Building Authority and the school community to upgrade the historic college’s buildings.
“It is with regret that the Presentation Sisters Victoria wish to announce that PCW is not able to continue and will close at the end of 2020,” the closure announcement email, written by congregation leader Maria Lazzaro, says.
“We have been aware for some time of the challenges facing PCW to maintain a high standard of education in the face of declining enrolments.”
PCW principal Filina Virgato said it “wasn’t an easy decision” to close down the historic school on Dandenong Rd.
Ms Virgato said it was “heartbreaking” but enrolment numbers had been challenged for some time.
“We are really proud of our tradition, PCW has always been a school that has fought for women’s education,” she said.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to make at all, it was really heartbreaking.
“It’s because we have been struggling with enrolments for a while. Our demographics show there is a shift in it.
“There are a lot of schools here, parents are spoiled for choice, there are a lot of new government schools.”
The 70 staff at the college were “angry, shocked and disappointed” to get the news that they may no longer have a job.
Independent Education Union acting general secretary David Brear said teachers were told that with around 400 students, down from up to 700, it had become very difficult to run a viable school and offer the breadth of subjects required.
Mr Brear said while the school was planning to stay open until the end of 2020, there was a fear that families could start taking their kids out, which would potentially mean jobs would be under threat before the closure date.
“Managing the uncertainty of the situation is really difficult as their employment may be threatened before the end of next year and we will be working closely with the school and Catholic Education Melbourne,” he said.
A sad sign of things to come.. The 2020 enrolment sign for Presentation College has just been removed from the front fence. Parents and students were told last night the school will close at the end of next year #7newsmelb pic.twitter.com/8tRHwCA68O
— Teegan Dolling (@tdolling) July 29, 2019
“We expect Catholic Education Melbourne to do everything they can do to support Presentation staff gaining employment in other Catholic schools in the diocese.
“Catholic Education Melbourne needs to use its imagination to think about what kind of Catholic offering they might make to Catholic families in the area for a Catholic school going forward.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said the State Government’s contribution to the $2 million building upgrades project would be followed up.
“We are not looking to build buildings at schools that are closing down,” he said.
He said the state government would not step in to save the institution, however help would be provided to families.
“I am not announcing that we are going to try and keep the school open,” he said.
“Of course we would always provide any support that those students need.”
PARENTS TAKEN ABACK BY SHOCK MOVE
Year 8 Parent Sam Baker said the announcement was a shock.
“Not only have we been blindsided but we are shocked that we were not giving a fighting chance,” she said.
“We sent our girls here because it is a small school.
“We did not want our girls to go to a mega education complex with 1500 other kids, that is not what we wanted.
“This school has been amazing for our girls. It’s small, it builds confidence.
“Every other Catholic school in this area is full to the brim.
“There has been a distinct lack of money coming into the school. We are sitting on a prime piece of real estate.”
Mrs Baker told the Herald Sun at noon that she’d received a text from her 13-year-old daughter that students could leave school for the day with parent permission.
“The girls have been told they can come, go, leave, do what they want,” she said.
“It is disgraceful, we were told their education would not skip a beat. It is day one and half the school is gone.”
Parent Janet Mitchell said she was “gutted” at the decision to close PCW.
“I feel angry, we never had a chance, we never had any consultation, we expect that in this day and age that you get a chance to fight for things you believe in,” she said.
“I believe parents would have been mobilised, there is a very strong alumni network.
“There are many options that could be explored. I am not prepared to give up, this is something worth fighting for.”
Ms Mitchell yesterday said her daughter — in year 8 — was left upset by the closure.
“She didn’t want to go to school today,” she said. “She was asking ‘where will I go to school?’
“It is hard to keep her motivated. To all of a sudden have it ripped from beneath them is a bad thing for young girls to accept.”
Danny, another parent who spoke to 3AW yesterday, said it was an “absolute bolt from the blue”.
“I was absolutely dumbfounded, it was so extreme — they even had a uniform change only a matter of months ago,” he told the radio station.
“If things were in the wind why would they pre-empt uniform changes?
“It’s a great school … my daughters are devastated.”
Danny said he was unaware of the enrolments issue, saying the school had started its multimillion-dollar upgrade just this year.
An Instagram posted by the school just last month showed an image of works on the campus, along with the caption: “Construction is well underway for the Nagle building!
“We will have more innovative and contemporary learning spaces before you know it! Thank you to the Presentation community for your patience during this time.”
DWINDLING NUMBERS LED TO SCHOOL’S DEMISE
Project manager assisting the sisters, Michael Elphick, told the Herald Sun the girls’ secondary school would remain open for the 2020 school year.
“We’re still running next year,” Mr Elphick said. “We’re well-resourced until 2020, for girls who do continue to stay.”
Mr Elphick said enrolments were sitting around the 400 mark, well below previous totals of more than 700.
“We’d need well over 1000 to get the sort of economies needed to sustain the school,” he said.
“The numbers haven’t been enough to sustain the sort of resources the school now needs in the 21st century, with subjects and extracurriculars the students deserve.”
PCW was founded in 1873 and sits on a site opposite Windsor Primary School, close to the corner of Dandenong Rd and Chapel St.
Year 12 tuition fees for 2019 start at $10,900.
The school’s 69 staff members were informed of the closure early Monday, with parents receiving emails later in the day.
The 466 students were officially informed of the school’s impending closure on Tuesday morning at assembly.
Principal Filina Virgato said that students and staff would be well supported.
“All staff have been informed and arrangements are in place for the pastoral care of students and staff,” she said.
“The wellbeing of our community remains paramount during this difficult time.”
A year 11 student, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Herald Sun she was devastated.
“We’ve all grown into such amazing women because of PCW, and it’s upsetting knowing girls won’t get to experience that anymore,” she said.
“Everyone’s mainly shocked and upset because we’ve all had such amazing memories there.”
PETITION TO SAVE BELOVED SCHOOL
A online petition set up on Monday evening urging people to “Save PCW” has amassed more than 1800 signatures.
PCW student Kate Damman shared the petition on Facebook.
“This is absolutely devastating and upsetting news for me and our community,” she wrote.
“We are truly attached and close and to hear this shocking and tragic news it has made us very overwhelmed.
“Presentation College Windsor has truly been one of the best experiences of my life. It has taught me so much and has given me so many lucky opportunities.
“Since the senior year are heading into VCE it makes it very hard for us to deal with. We are all anxious about the future and finding a new school as good as this one.”
Parents have said it is difficult to grasp declining enrolment as a factor given the school is a “big feeder area” from the inner and outer east and west areas.
ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland told the Herald Sun his 14-year-old daughter, who attends PCW in year 9, said she was very distressed.
“There have been a lot of weeping teenage girls on FaceTime. It’s been very hard,” he said.
“It’s come completely out of the blue.
“It’s been a tremendous shock for everyone involved, the students, parents and staff who have to find other employment.
“We are all taken aback. We have a 14-year-old girl who loves her school, her teachers and classmates. It’s very difficult.
“We, like hundreds of other parents right now are looking at other schools for enrolment. We have to take it at face value.”
A parent of a year 10 student at the school, Stieve De Lance, said the school’s decision came completely out of the blue.
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“We had no indication whatsoever,” Ms De Lance said.
“We deliberately put her in a place where she had a friend group … where she can thrive and find herself.”
With the closest similar schools already at capacity, Ms De Lance is extremely concerned she won’t be able to find a suitable place for her daughter to complete VCE.
“We can’t afford anything more expensive,” she said.
“I have no idea where she’ll go now.”
Famous past students include County Court Judge Katherine Bourke, former MP Anna Burke and model/actor Pia Miller.
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