If the tuggeranong figures are a shambles then the numbers for North West Belconnen are a farce. The total number of primary school students in their North West Belconnen region in 2010 is projected to be 2515. This is for the current situation. Under the Towards 2020 proposal* it is 3089, a difference of 574. This is largely due to the students from Holt and Higgins being double counted. They have been redistributed to surrounding schools but the new West Belconnen school (P-6 initially) has also been included.
How to fix it? Let’s start with treating Belconnen as one region. Splitting Belconnen up was only ever a political ploy to make the school closures more palatable.
Here are the projected 2010 enrolments for Belconnen as given in the Towards 2020 proposal:
. School Status quo Proposal Difference 1 Charnwood PS 175 220 45 2 Evatt PS 140 430 290 3 Florey PS 345 480 135 4 Flynn PS 150 0 -150 5 Fraser PS 350 374 24 6 Higgins PS 190 0 -190 7 Holt PS 150 0 -150 8 Latham PS 195 310 115 9 Macgregor PS 325 350 25 10 Miles Franklin PS 370 425 55 11 Mount Rogers PS 125 0 -125 12 West Belconnen 0 500 500 13 Aranda PS 350 350 0 14 Cook PS 135 0 -135 15 Giralang PS 145 0 -145 16 Hawker PS 210 210 0 17 Kaleen PS 395 450 55 18 Macquarie PS 220 275 55 19 Maribyrnong PS 185 350 165 20 Southern Cross PS 175 110 -65 21 Weetangera PS 250 330 80
It is not clear how to remedy the numbers for Belconnen. If we assume all of Higgins and Holt go to the new West Belconnen School, plus 65 from Southern Cross, then we get 405 for West Belconnen. In the ballpark for the Towards 2020 number of 500. That leaves 125 from Mt Rogers and 150 from Flynn to be redistributed.
The Towards 2020 plan redistributes pupil numbers where they will conveniently fit, not where they might actually want to go. Just to get some idea of the situation in 2010 we will make some arbitrary assumptions about where to place the displaced students.
Starting with Flynn, their closest schools would be Charnwood, Fraser and Latham. Charnwood is not a destination of choice. To get to Latham they would have to go under Ginninderra Drive. Fraser is full already. Regardless we’ll split the Flynn kids three ways, 50 each to Charnwood, Fraser and Latham.
The obvious choices for kids who currently attend Mt Rogers would be Miles Franklin and Evatt. Miles Franklin is fairly full, so we’ll top it up with 55 kids and the other 70 we will place in Evatt.
Kaleen and Maribyrnong only have to accommodate 145 from Giralang, but they are listed as changing by 55 and 165 respectively. Perhaps someone thought they were redistributing 220 students? In any case if we assign 70 to Kaleen and 75 to Maribyrnong this is the result:
. School Status quo Proposal Difference 1 Charnwood PS 175 225 50 2 Evatt PS 140 210 70 3 Florey PS 345 345 0 4 Flynn PS 150 0 -150 5 Fraser PS 350 400 50 6 Higgins PS 190 0 -190 7 Holt PS 150 0 -150 8 Latham PS 195 245 50 9 Macgregor PS 325 325 0 10 Miles Franklin PS 370 425 55 11 Mount Rogers PS 125 0 -125 12 West Belconnen 0 405 405 13 Aranda PS 350 350 0 14 Cook PS 135 0 -135 15 Giralang PS 145 0 -145 16 Hawker PS 210 210 0 17 Kaleen PS 395 465 70 18 Macquarie PS 220 275 55 19 Maribyrnong PS 185 260 75 20 Southern Cross PS 175 110 -65 21 Weetangera PS 250 330 80
Which adds up to 4580 students in total for the status quo projections and the Towards 2020 proposal.
Under my scenario Evatt goes from a projected enrolment of 430 down to 210! The Department needs to release some amended figures. How can parents even hope to plan where their kids will go when the figures are so wrong?
* I chose option 2 as it is simpler to add up the numbers, otherwise I would have to make messy assumptions about how many of the year 5-8 students in the Melba middle school ended were previously in Charnwood.
Update: I think I have worked out the South East Belconnen inconsistency. Of the Cook kids 55 go to Macquarie and 80 to Weetangera (and none to Aranda … hmmm). There were 65 kids left to place from Southern Cross (going from P-6 to P-3), so they have plonked them in … wait for it .. Kaleen! Huh? I am pretty sure they have then double counted these kids and assigned them to the new P-10 super school at West Belconnen.
