Pupils forced to new schools amid asbestos fear

A school will close for two weeks, or maybe it could be two months

THE 120 students at Warilla North Public School could be in for a long winter of discontent after it was indefinitely shut down yesterday because of fears children had been exposed to asbestos-containing materials uncovered during the federal government's $16.2 billion schools stimulus program.

The closure of the school, south of Wollongong in NSW, was announced to most parents via phone calls on Monday night. It means students will be seconded to one of two public primary schools nearby until the classrooms and grounds of Warilla North are given the safety all-clear.

But while the NSW Education Department expects alternative schooling arrangements may be in place for only two weeks, some parents claim they have been told by teachers the situation is unlikely to be resolved for at least two months.

Leeann McGowan, who has three sons at Warilla North, said the temporary closure of the school would be "extremely disruptive" to her children's education. Her oldest son, Steven, 10, will go to Mount Warrigal Public School in the interim, while Michael, 8, and Christopher, 7, will attend Barrack Heights Public. "For a start, they are losing half an hour's worth of classes every day because of the extra time it takes to bus them over to the other schools. That might not sound like much, but it adds up to five hours per fortnight," Ms McGowan said.

"Secondly, it's not easy for them to adjust. One of my boys was crying this morning because he didn't want to go to a new school because he feared he might get bullied."

Ms McGowan expressed concern that the school's students may already have been exposed to asbestos, as the Building the Education Revolution projects -- $850,000 worth of refurbishments to the school hall and library -- had been going on for months. "I'm worried that the asbestos has been around since the workers began upgrading the library and the hall. Maybe they (the Education Department) should have known about the asbestos threat sooner."

The department said yesterday that prior to the BER works the presence of the "material concerned" was unknown.

"All safety precautions were taken as soon as it was detected," a department spokesperson said.

The students will not be assimilated into classes at the school to which they have been moved. Instead, they will have their own classrooms, be taught by their own teachers and be given full access to the host school's library and computer facilities.