Newington’s anti-co-education alumni fail in election bid

The group of ‘old boys’ say there is still ‘widespread concern’ about letting girls into the Sydney school and they will continue to fight.

Newington College, in Stanmore. Picture: Justin Lloyd

A campaign by an anti-co-education group of alumni to take over the Newington College ‘old boys’ executive, and prove its former students are mostly against the co-ed move, has failed.

The Old Newingtonians’ Union (ONU) is divided into two warring old boys factions – Your ONU, who are largely supportive of co-education, and the anti-co-education Save Newington College (SNC), which is set to launch legal action against the separate college council that made the co-ed decision.

At a special general meeting on Wednesday night, alumni elected all 15 ONU members from the Your ONU faction, rejecting the 15 SNC candidates by a small number of votes.

The meeting was previously deemed a proxy vote on the contentious co-education issue at the $42,000-a-year Sydney private school.

Your ONU describes themselves as apolitical yet their ‘how to vote’ card for the meeting was supportive of the benefits of co-education for Newington, suggesting that the increased student numbers would give the school “greater financial flexibility”.

SNC quickly put out a statement on Wednesday night saying that despite the loss, the vote indicated “strong concern” from Newington alumni.

“More than 45.5 per cent of Newington alumni voted for change, and greater scrutiny of the College Council,” SNC spokesperson Ian Webster said.

“We will continue to advocate strongly for a fairer system that protects the right of boys and girls to have equal education choice.”

Mr Webster also questioned the way the vote was conducted.

“The Your ONU group had secretarial support from the college to a degree not afforded to the entirely volunteer SNC group,” he said.

“This resulted in various impediments to a ’clean’ voting procedure for those supporting the SNC group.”

The ONU’s newly-elected president Ed Miller, an executive who was formerly the director of economics and climate justice at GetUp, had used LinkedIn to campaign for the role and to criticise SNC.

Social impact executive Ed Miller. Picture: LinkedIn

“We need to put a stop to the personal hostility, negative PR campaigns, and bad faith white-anting that has disrupted this community for too long,” he wrote on Tuesday evening.

He said the Newington he loved “wasn’t cliquey or exclusive” and criticised SNC for insisting “(that) *their* voices (be) heard above others”, adding their hostile campaign was forcing some alumni and parents to “withdraw from dialogue altogether”.

“Newington doesn’t belong to the 950 people on SNC’s mailing list. It doesn’t belong to the 700 people who voted for them at the SGM,” he wrote. “Newington belongs to all of us.”

In response, the SNC pick for secretary Peter Prilis said Mr Miller was “on the wrong side of this”.

“If the members vote again for us at the AGM the mandate is again clear. The ONU needs to listen. The College Council needs to listen,” he wrote in an exchange under the post.

“An ONU run by the SNC will ensure that the School listens and starts to treat parents and the old boys for the important stakeholders that they are.”

SNC nominee Peter Prilis.

In an earlier video posted to LinkedIn, Mr Miller said the ONU executive could not reverse the decision to go co-ed.

But alumni and parents against co-education, who spoke to The Australian on the condition of anonymity before the vote, acknowledged the influence the ONU had to appoint six old boys to the 24 person-strong school council.

SNC supporters said they were “becoming increasingly concerned about the school’s current direction”, including that the fewer boys enrolled following the co-ed move would mean male students would no longer be able to compete against King’s, Riverview, Joeys, Scots and Shore, and would instead “be reduced to the status of Sydney Grammar and Sydney Boys High, who are utterly unable to compete at a high level in GPS sporting competitions”.

Your ONU has criticised SNC, saying: “Regardless of your views on co-ed: we are better than this”.

Newington College headmaster Michael Parker.

In a note to parents on Friday, headmaster Michael Parker said the school council was “fully committed to co-ed”.