Some of you will remember Gab Macintosh and her school, Blacktown Youth College who were part of our group from the beginning. We lost touch with Gab for a number of years but this year we have been in touch again and I learnt that she had set up another school called Eagle Arts and Vocational College with three campuses in Broken Hill, Western Sydney and the Central Coast. Gab has been keen for the school to become part of ADEC. As with BYC, the students at these schools have often had troubled histories within their families, their education and some with the justice system. Gab has always been one to champion them and try to find ways to enable them to change their lives and create some educational paths ways which work for them. The school recently has had the disturbing news that the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) has decided to close them down. Like all these situation the story is long and complicated but is very upsetting and perplexing for the school community especially as they have had 5 inspections in the last 18 months and just two weeks prior to the final negative inspection they had passed an inspection. Gab told me that she had written an article for the local paper and this was apparently reported to the board and they came for another inspection virtually the next day. It was this inspection that prompted the judgement that they were not a proper school. Gab has not really been able to establish why one group of inspectors’ decision was completely overturned. The school worked with a compliance expert and even this process did not result in a change of decision. In fact any attempt to allow time to work on issues or work on appeals has resulted in the decision being brought forward.
Gab is aware that other small alternative schools have also been having more difficult processes of inspection and wonders if some change of culture has occurred within the Authority which is now making it much harder to comply?
Fax (02) 9339 5500
Contact the Premier https://www.nsw.gov.au/contact-us/contact-the-premier/
Perrottet, Dominic In his capacity as Treasurer, and Minister for Industrial Relations:
Reports of IDEC@EUDEC2016 can now be found as ADEC Newsletter No 20.
Reports of APDEC2016 can now be found as ADEC Newsletter No21.
Reports of ADEC Conference 2106 can now be founds as ADEC Newsletter No 22.
You can find all these reports on the Newsletters page.
International Democratic Education Network Newsletter, September 2016. EUDEC @ IDEC in Finland.
A new ADEC logo has been designed and is in provisional use. It will be presented at the ADEC AGM being held on 27th September 2016 at Koonwarra Village School and a decision made as to its use in the future. The logo is attached here for your comments.
Hope to see many of you at the ADEC 2016 Conference. Early bird registration closes at the end of August so there is still time to take advantage of this.
Koonwarra Village School in South Gippsland, Victoria, is proud to host the 2016 ADEC Conference
Dates: Monday 26th (evening) to Wednesday 28th September (mid-afternoon)
Accommodation and travel information
Cost: $180 (up until 30th August), $220 (after 1st September) (this includes all meals and conference activities)
Program so far:
Please contact us with any questions or program suggestions.
I am very pleased to tell you that Fiona McKenzie, the Co-ordinator, and the community of Koonwarra Village School in Victoria are happy to host the ADEC Conference in 2016. I would like to thank them very much for agreeing to host. They hope to hold the conference during the week of 26th – 30th September 2016 which is the week most common to most of the States and NZ.
As soon as they have the definite dates I will let you know.
Those of us who were at the 2014 conference at Peregrine School in Tasmania will remember Fiona and Hadassah and I look forward to being able to spend time together with them and their community. Koonwarra Village School began in 2011/12.
The website for the school is koonwarravillageschool.org
I hope that many of you and members of your school communities will be able to join us for this gathering and we can continue to renew the connections we have made over the years and build new paths for ADEC.
Early Bird registration is still open till the end of April for the first APDEC conference being hosted by Miao-Li County Holistic Education school in Taiwan from 18th – 24th July 2016. We hope that many of our friends in ADEC will be able to participate and continue the work to develop the Asia/Pacific Democratic Education Community.
For more information please see the website www.apdec2016.org or follow developments on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/apdec2016