After a long wait and much anticipation, the catchment area for our new Inner City High School on Cleveland Street was released on Friday - and to be frank about it, it's utterly absurd.
As you can see from the map below, the catchment takes in areas as far away from the site as Darling Point and Woollahra, but the school will not be accessible to families who live directly across the road from it, let alone the nearby areas of Redfern, Darlington and Chippendale.
The fact the catchment skirts around areas with high concentrations of public housing in Redfern and Waterloo is also much cause for concern.
We've already spoken to and heard from several parents who are fuming about the announcement. In the SMH today they've described it as a "kick in the guts" that their children won't be able to attend a school across the road from their homes.
Our office will be meeting with prospective parents at Mobile Offices in February. For more information about these, please phone us on 9517 2800.
We know that families in the eastern suburbs have been campaigning for a new high school in their area - and we support their needs - but it's not OK for the NSW Liberals to attempt to solve this by drawing up a catchment that tries to position our new local inner city high school as one for the eastern suburbs.
This is not acceptable.
We will be contacting the Department of Education and the Minister for Education about our concerns - as well as highlighting the serious impacts this decision will have on the ability for our kids to walk, ride or catch public transport to school and the impacts on traffic congestion in our neighbourhoods.
If you are impacted and want to be involved in building our community response, please get in touch with us via return email, or call us on 9517 2800.
