Boarding school posed ‘unacceptable risk’

A Townsville indigenous boarding school was so beset with problems that is was forced to shut its doors.

Shalom Christian College students protest out the front of their campus against the closure of the senior school.

An indigenous boarding high school was plagued by unchecked absenteeism, failed to monitor strangers on campus, was overstaffed and posed an “unacceptable” litigation risk to its Uniting Church owner, ­according to an internal report completed ahead of its closure.

A Uniting Church document for Shalom Christian College ­in Townsville — titled “renewal strategy” and “risks to property trust” — paints a devastating ­picture of a school beset by “low expectations”, which failed to properly communicate with ­parents and was beset by a ­culture that allowed students to wander off campus during class time.

The Uniting Church late last month announced the boarding and high school component of Shalom would be shut, in a move that shocked staff and students, many who first learnt of the ­closure in a Townsville Bulletin report.

Independent Education Union Queensland assistant branch secretary Brad Hayes said the church had handled the closure “terribly” and had refused to provide its renewal strategy report to the union, staff or students. “We have been told the decision to close the school was a result of the renewal strategy report but the church has refused to provide a copy of the report so we are in the dark,” Mr Hayes said yesterday.

Reverend David Baker, the moderator of the Uniting Church in Queensland, said the decision to close the school was based “solely on the welfare and best interest of our students”.

The renewal strategy, dated November, highlights church concerns over its $1.13 billion Queensland property trust potentially being sued for damages over illegal or improper activities at the school. “The current operations of Shalom ... continue to present a high level of financial and reputational risk to the property trust,” the document says.

The Uniting Church took over the school in 2013 after its previous owner, Congress ­Community Development and Education Unit, went broke.

Shalom was named in the Royal Commission into ­Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse over its failure to care for a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by four older boys at the school in 2006.

The commission was told Shalom dealt with 20 sexual assaults a year and could not assure a safe environment for boarding students.

At the heart of the problems at the school was the large number of students that “require a level of physical and mental health intervention beyond the capability of the school to address”.

Money for teaching and learning was being directed to deal with the physical and mental needs of those students, presenting a “formula for a failing school”.

“Regardless of the social and emotional obligations that may be experienced, the harsh reality is that this is a loss making endeavour,” the report states.

The boarding and high school components of the school, which employed 85 staff, will close ­tomorrow.

The high school had 139 ­students, according to the report.