Success parents “angry” at omission from new high school intake

SUCCESS parents say they are “disappointed, angered and upset” preliminary intake boundaries for the new Hammond Park high school does not include them, despite the suburbs sharing a border.

The finalised intake boundaries will not be announced until midyear, but Success residents were left angry when a post on the ‘Hammond Park Secondary School-Planning Name’ Facebook page listed “all or parts of the localities of Aubin Grove, Banjup, Hammond Park, Mandogalup, Wandi and Wattleup” would be included in the local intake area (LIA).

The school will have the capacity to cater for up to 1450 students and will open to Year 7s at the beginning of the 2020 school year.

Trudy Magerl, who has three children at Success Primary School, said their proximity to the new school meant they had always assumed they would be included in the LIA.

“I don’t know anyone local who anticipated the current boundary allocation, it has many of us flabbergasted,” she said.

“This current boundary effects the children’s safety and many parents have already agreed that they do not feel comfortable with their children walking or riding to school if they must cross the freeway.

“Beeliar Drive and Russell Road are over-occupied as it is, imagine adding to that families from both Success headed to Atwell College and Aubin Grove headed to Hammond Park, when to be honest, it just seems unnecessary.”

Fellow Success PS parent Leah Harrison said she had gone from being “extremely excited and happy” that her son would have access to a new school within walking distance to being angry at the preliminary LIA.

“We had planned to purchase a new home in Success this year, fully expecting to be accepted into the school given it was logical to assume that, being within walking proximity, the Russell Road end of Success would be in the LIA, but all of our hard thought out plans for the future have now been put on hold,” she said.

“The decision to exclude Success is not only a poor one, it will put unnecessary pressure on traffic on the Armadale, Russell and Rowley overpasses at an already extremely busy time of the day.

“It is five minutes to travel from Success to Hammond Park and over 11 minutes on a good day from Success to Atwell.”

A change.org petition started by parents had 738 signatures at the time of going to print.

Education Department Public School Planning director Pam Moss said border sharing played no part in how an LIA was determined.

“A number of factors impact on the potential enrolment numbers at a school including the number of homes in a school’s local intake area and the projected numbers of future students who will live in those residences,” she said.

“The boundaries of suburbs are not taken into account.

“Due to the large size of secondary school local-intake areas, the boundaries often need to overlap major roads such as the freeway.”

She said families living outside the LIA could apply to enrol their child at the school but that a place could not be guaranteed.