Welcome to 2020, hoping you have had a great start to the year.

Over the holidays we have had further horrific events that have tested the resilience of staff and families in many of our communities. It would be remiss of me if we didn’t congratulate the DoE, and particularly the Assets teams for their awesome work in getting our schools ready to start the year. And providing support for our schools. See the pictures below of Wytaliba PS & Bobin PS. It has been a fantastic effort & the teams need to be congratulated – Many thanks. Great news too that Kathy Powzun has been appointed Executive Director in SO & P to co-ordinate our continuing support for our schools.

The SPC President, Craig Petersen & I advocated for the extension of “Census date” to give schools more time to get their “actuals” in and thankfully this was agreed to. We know it has had a knock on affect to the delivery of the SBAR, but it will be out soon (at the latest April 22). Great news to that DoE have provided the same staffing dispensation this year for fire affected communities as it has done for drought affected communities.

Over the weekend you may have seen announcements in the media by the Minister that she is “unhappy” with LSLD and will review the processes. Whilst disappointed that the professional associations weren’t consulted in this, we certainly are open to suggestions for improvement. As I have said in the media if we had the full SRS (100% of the School Resource Standard) and if the tools were better and if we received some training LSLD may have landed in a better place.
Sitting behind this discussion is the Latham Manifesto “ Measurement & outcome-based funding in NSW schools”.

With 66 recommendations we all need to read & think about his thinking. The power of one politician to hold a whole government to task is a concern.