BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — The state Labor government has a plan to close schools in Tasmania, disguised by the promise that "no school will be forced to close". The value of this promise is revealed by the dispute that has erupted over the plan to amalgamate Chigwell and North Chigwell primary schools.
A Chigwell Area Review of Education committee was set up in April to manage the proposed amalgamation. The committee includes representatives of both schools and the department. It decided to conduct one referendum with two questions which would determine whether an amalgamation would take place and, if so, to which location.
Votes were weighted so that parents of Chigwell students would be worth double the vote of North Chigwell parents since Chigwell had half the number of students. This process was clearly advertised prior to the vote; however, the department changed the weighting from 1:2 to 1: 1.875 after the referendum because not all the votes were returned from North Chigwell parents.
Over 75% of parents from each school voted in favour of amalgamating. On the basis of the department's modified weighting scale, North Chigwell was to be the location of the amalgamated school. The result would have been Chigwell had the original weighting been maintained, which has upset parents from Chigwell primary.
The department estimates that it will be cheaper to upgrade the North Chigwell site than to upgrade Chigwell.
In May, the Mercury revealed that a leaked Education Department submission detailed plans for closing Chigwell Primary School. Thus, long before voting plans were discussed, this was the department's preferred option. The leaked document (written in December 1999) described the closure as "a valuable opportunity to pilot the school closure process in a situation where there is clear justification and benefits for the local community that will outweigh disadvantages".
This suggests that other schools (with or without the supposed "justifications" and "benefits") will be targeted, if this amalgamation is successful. The document also said that money saved by the amalgamation would be "partially" reinvested into the new school, indicating that the department is motivated by the desire to save funds.