Tasmania's draft policy angers State Schools Parents and Friends

TASMANIA has drawn up controversial plans that strip parents of the right to choose a specific state school for their children.

Gillian Van der Schans

TASMANIA has drawn up controversial plans that strip parents of the right to choose a specific state school for their children, defying a national push to empower parents and principals.

A draft policy drawn up by the state Education Department would make it virtually impossible for most parents to send children to any state school other than the one nearest their home.

Even a dispensation for family links would be removed from 2015, preventing principals from allowing siblings to join a brother or sister at a school deemed by bureaucrats to be "out of area".

The draft policy, released to principals for discussion within schools but not given a broader public release, will provoke a major debate about parental choice.

Like many other states, Tasmania in its Education Act guarantees a place for students at the school closest to their home but allows enrolments elsewhere subject to availability.

Typically, principals will allow out-of-area enrolments unless their school is full and almost always if a child has a sibling already at the school.

Under the draft policy, parental choice is extinguished in all but special needs and exceptional cases, with the final say given to bureaucrats. The Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends urged school communities to speak up and criticised the draft for ignoring parents who choose a school closer to work than home.

"People generally take their children to childcare near their work and that childcare centre tends to flow to a particular school and that's why the kids go there," vice-president Jenny Eddington told The Australian.

"Having a school close to work means those parents can go in and do parental help in their lunch hour, pop in to assembly if their child is getting a certificate, or go and see them in a running race in the school carnival."

Liberal opposition education spokesman Michael Ferguson attacked the draft plan as an assault on parental choice that would split up families, stifle competition and speed the exodus from public schools to private.

"This draft policy will provide parents with a reason not just to bypass their local school; some will feel they are left with no choice but to bypass the public education system entirely," he said.

Mr McKim, who is also Greens leader, refused to comment on the plan. "I want to hear the views of school communities, and will allow the consultation process to run its course without interference," he said.

One concerned parent is Gillian Van der Schans, whose three children officially travel "out of area" to attend Trevallyn Primary School.

Ms Van der Schans and husband Alan Cook decided to "bypass" a closer school partly because a good friend near Trevallyn was able to care for their youngest children after school.

"We also had important friendships in the area, the children knew quite a few children at the school, and we wanted to be part of that community," she said.

Having secured a position for their first child, Sienna, her brothers Sanden and Theo were later allowed to join her at Trevallyn.

"To not be able to have children join their sibling like that would be a dreadful situation," she said.

She believed the decision on out-of-school enrolments should rest with principals. "We have to trust that principals have the skills and authority to make those decisions, rather than an administrative process," she said.

Tasmanian Principals Association president David Raw said it was "plain as day" the policy was aimed at denying parents choice.

"This may create a fair degree of angst and achieve very little," Mr Raw said.