Coronavirus: Parent backlash at Victorian school rules

Parents are concerned about their children ­attending school with staff and students from Melbourne hotspot suburbs.

Degraves Street, one of Melbourne’s popular and usually bustling laneways, was all but deserted on Thursday as the lockdown shut the city down again. Picture: Getty Images

Schools just outside Melbourne’s coronavirus lockdown zone are facing a backlash from parents concerned about their children ­attending school with staff and students from hotspot suburbs.

Dozens of regional schools in proximity to the city — some with campuses on either side of the divide — are grappling with how to handle the latest restrictions, which include a likely return to remote learning for more than 1300 metropolitan schools for term three.

One principal described the situation as “diabolical”.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar, which has a junior campus in locked-down Aintree and a senior campus in the regional Moorabool Shire, has already made the difficult decision to revert to remote classes for most year levels in response to the dilemma.

Melbourne Fire Brigade members deliver food parcels. Picture: AFP

About 75 per cent of its students come from western metropolitan suburbs.

About 10km east of the lockdown border, Drouin Secondary College has been instructed by education officials to open on Monday, but some parents are not happy.

Although it is situated in the Baw Baw Shire, one-fifth of its students and about 20 teachers live in the Cardinia Shire, which was declared a COVID-19 hotspot and has been placed under level three restrictions for six weeks.

Messages posted to the school’s Facebook page, many of which have since been deleted, reveal some parents are concerned about those from restricted areas being permitted to attend the campus.

“Really don’t want to be sending my daughter if kids are coming from Pakenham or Bunyip,” wrote one parent. “Drouin Secondary College can’t reassure that my daughter is safe from the virus.”

Another parent claiming to have a chronic illness said she was “very concerned to send my children back to school with other students from said lockdown areas”.

“Please advise what the school is going to do to protect children.”

Drouin deputy principal Rob Monk said the school received confirmation from the Education Department on Wednesday that all students and staff should be on-site from the start of term three, even those from lockdown areas.

Police pull over motorists not complying with lockdown. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

He said he was aware of concerns expressed via social media but hoped they were not representative of the broader school community. The school would be taking strict health and safety precautions, including introducing mandatory temperature screening for students from restricted areas in accordance with a new Education Department policy announced on Thursday.

Mr Monk said he was aware of 12 families that were considering keeping children at home as a result of having immuno-compromised parents or grandparents in the home. He said that was “perfectly understandable” but staff would not be able to provide remote teaching to the same degree they did during term two.

“We think it is an unreasonable expectation of teachers to deliver face-to-face and remotely simultaneously — that would be the worst of both worlds for teachers and learners,” he said.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar principal Andrew Neal said the school had made a difficult decision to conduct remote classes for students in prep to Years 8, while Years 9 to 12 will be able to attend the regional campus.

Many of the school’s Years 9 and 10 students do a VCE subject.

A resident at one of the public housing towers under lockdown in Flemington argues with police. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“It’s a diabolical problem for us,” said Mr Neal. “And although we were effectively able to open the senior campus as normal, we thought it prudent not to, given the large number of students we have coming from the metro area.”

Mr Neal said most families had been supportive, but there were some who wanted the school to close completely and others who wanted it to remain open for all students. “The degree of frustration is greater this time around,” he said. “We’re working on the assumption we can’t please everyone right now.”

Following the resurgent outbreak, the Victorian government announced this week that schools in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire north of the city would extend school holidays by a week for those students in prep to Year 10 to enable schools to prepare for a possible return to remote classes. VCE students will return to school as normal.

A decision on whether all students return to school before the six-week lockdown concludes has yet to be announced.

Students at schools in restricted areas will have temperatures taken on arrival. Students from restricted areas who attend schools elsewhere will undergo daily temperature checks.