Duress alarms installed in terrified teacher’s houses in Mornington Island

Twelve teachers in a remote community in the Gulf of Carpentaria have had been given duress alarms and had heat sensors installed in their homes as school violence escalates.

Mornington Island State School is short on teachers and unable to attract them to the isolated community.

Twelve teachers in a remote community in the Gulf of Carpentaria have had been given duress alarms and had heat sensors installed in their homes as school violence escalates.

Incident reports seen by the Cairns Post show homes in Mornington Island have been

broken into by students while a police car has also been stolen and joy-ridden.

Rocks have been thrown at the principal, and a teacher was also hit by a student holding a cricket bat.

Sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the alarms and heat sensors were installed by the state government run school to protect staff.

They say the school is rife with “unprecendented levels of violence”, and teachers have been encouraged to “sleep with them (the duress alarms) on the bedside table”.

“We have category one fences now around our houses but many of the kids can climb over them,” the teacher said.

Education and Youth Justice Minister Di Farmer

Each teacher resident already has heat sensors inside their homes to alert them to intruders.

There are 12 teaching staff at the Mornington Island State School, 679km north-west of Cairns, and 206 students.

The school has 20 full-time equivalent allocated to it, according to My School’s data, but has been unable to fill up to eight vacancies.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: “Concerns about staff safety or wellbeing at the schools have not been raised ... this year.”

However, Cairns Post has seen an incident report from March 2024 where a teacher made a complaint about a student threatening to “bash them with two metal poles” and a social media message where a teacher complained about being hit on the leg with a cricket bat.

Other incident reports from May show teachers being called “c—k sucker”, “gay c---t” and a class where a “student threw a piece of timber like a spear”.

The revelations come after the state government announced a new program for at-risk students at the school called ‘Flexispaces’.

Education and Youth Minister Di Farmer said the program would inject $600,000 in funding into Mornington Island State School.

“FlexiSpaces are such a great tool to help schools respond to students who are experiencing challenges in a mainstream educational environment,” she said after launching the $45m program across 34 schools on May 1.

On the main street of Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Picture: Peter Carruthers

A spokesman from Ms Farmer’s office said he hoped “specialist teachers who are more interested in one-on-one or smaller group learning may see FlexiSpaces as a great opportunity”.

A 2023 audit of government services in the community found 66 service providers funded with $326m over four years - but also three of the 66 had found to have met their KPIs. Picture: Peter Carruthers

But a source said the school would not be able to attract teachers given there had been eight vacancies not filled since last year.

“The $600,000 will never be used by the school,” the source said.

“We even made a promotional video to try to get teachers here. But the last time we had someone here was in February but she left after 10 days”.

The source said part of the problem were the town’s “third world conditions”.

“We haven’t even had a drinkable water source since February,” they said.

There is only one ATM in the town that sources say does not have cash “90 per cent of the time and neither does the post office”.

There are no coffee shops, restaurants, SES, taxis or hairdressers, they said.

Originally published as Duress alarms installed in terrified teacher’s houses in Mornington Island