Beechworth residents and children are demanding action after a decade of ‘broken promises’.
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More than 120 residents gathered outside the Beechworth Secondary College to show support for the school ahead of a public meeting about its state and funding on Wednesday night.
It comes as the school missed out on funding for an upgrade in the 2018-19 Victorian budget, despite receiving money towards planning in the previous year.
Gathered residents said they were frustrated by the long-wait for funding and sick of being overlooked by governments.
Katherine Beaton has two children enrolled in the College’s Monterssori Adolescence Program, the only syllabus of its kind in regional Victoria.
She said while the program, teachers and other staff were fantastic, it was devastating to have hopes of a re-build dashed again.
“What do I say to my daughters when they ask why lots of other schools received money this year but their school did not?,” she said.
“Are we to explain to our children that they are somehow less deserving of this funding than other students in Victoria?
“The thing that many of us are fed up with is that it has been going on for ten years now – it was ten years ago that stage one of the rebuild began.
“It seems quite cruel to keep promising year after year that we will receive our money, but then never to deliver.”
As well as secondary parents and children, business owners, former students and parents of primary school school-aged children all gathered outside the school.
Rebecca Humpreys, who has two children at primary school, said her eldest child was more than two years away from starting secondary school but now was the time to support the college.
While Cathy Sandow said the school was more than just a source of education.
“This is so important for our community,” she said.
“Schools keep communities together, they help grow a town.”
An Education Department spokesman previously told the Border Mail they were delivering record investment to the state but realistically they can not fund every project, every year.
“We are aware of the benefits of the Beechworth Secondary College upgrade project, however the reality is that we are unable to fund every project in every Budget and the needs of more than 1500 Victorian schools must be balanced when making any decisions on school infrastructure funding,” they said.
The meeting will be held at Quercus from 7.30pm.