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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-30 Daily Xml
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Parliamentary Committees

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: ASHFORD SPECIAL SCHOOL RELOCATION

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (11:02): I move:

That the 442nd report of the committee, entitled Ashford Special School Relocation, be noted.

It is proposed to relocate Ashford Special School to the William Light R-12 School site at an estimated cost of $9.5 million, excluding GST. The new facility will accommodate an enrolment of 105 reception to year 12 students with special needs. The facility provisions are summarised as follows: four sub schools, each with four general learning areas, wet areas and secure storage; a withdrawal room; student amenities, fully accessible with hoists, hydraulic tables, etc.; a calm room and a secure, all-weather outdoor play area; a stand alone administration area, comprised of a reception area, four offices, two meeting rooms, resource area, treatment room, disability access toilets, staff lounge, staff toilets, SSO work area storage; and various other things including civil and landscaping works.

The project has considered the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act with respect to making provisions for persons with disabilities. The project will be fully certified in accordance with legislative requirements. The proposed project aims to provide modern, efficient and functional areas for the delivery of special education to the community. The key drivers for the redevelopment proposal were to make a significant and positive contribution to the families with students enrolled and be of benefit to the community as a whole, to provide new accommodation for the special school, and avoid the continuing and escalating high cost of maintenance of existing school buildings. The project is expected to be completed by November 2013.

I would like to thank the members of the committee and the staff for their contributions to this inquiry. I would also like to make mention of the member for Ashford, who has taken a long-term interest in this project and made a very worthwhile contribution to our inquiry. Given this, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public works.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:04): I believe the member for Ashford wants to speak, but the opposition thoroughly supports this project. It is a good project. It was a most interesting hearing and quite a bit came out of it that a number of us can use in the future with regard to the needs of special students in our area schools, so we support the project.

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:05): I would first of all like to thank the Public Works Committee, an excellent committee chaired by the member for Little Para, for the opportunity to address the committee and also to talk to some of the people who have been involved in the planning. As the chair has said, I have been involved with the concept of this proposal and the proposal for quite some time. The first opportunity I had to hear about it was with the former minister for education, Jane Lomax-Smith, and, other than my usual duties as the local member, I have been to that school many times.

With the focus of redevelopment, changes and improvements to Ashford Special School students and staff, there were a few things I wanted to put before the committee and now want to put before parliament. First of all, we were hoping that by having the Ashford Special School located at the William Light School, the R to 12 school, there would be some positives for the William Light School as well as obviously improving the facilities considerably for the Ashford Special School.

There are still some concerns. Although the William Light School community is quite excited about the concept of this co-location, we wanted to make sure that the very valuable sporting facilities, particularly the oval, were not interfered with in any way because, in addition to the school activities on the oval, both cricket and soccer, important community soccer and cricket are also played there, and we would like that to continue. We are very mindful of the fact that we do not want the Ashford Special School footprint to interfere with that green space.

Secondly, there has been a problem for quite some time at William Light with regard to car parking and also dropping off and picking up students to go to school, so I am very keen to make sure—and this is one of the points I made before the Public Works Committee—that particularly with Access cabs and buses and the different vehicles needed to transport some of the students with special needs or mobility issues, the importance of that is taken into consideration. If you visit the school (and I was at a breakfast there just recently), you have to park a few blocks away because there is no parking. I just hope that the issues of traffic congestion and making facilities available are taken on board.

As I mentioned, when this concept was first raised I was with the former minister Jane Lomax-Smith, and we were very impressed that the current Ashford Special School has a small swimming pool. That small swimming pool has been used as a calming agent in many respects for some of the students who, in many cases, have a number of not only intellectual disabilities but also behavioural problems. The pool has been used by the staff not only to try to give the students some water skills but also to calm them down.

I am very sad that what was suggested by the former minister and very much endorsed by myself does not seem to have been incorporated. I should actually tell people that the former minister and I would go swimming in the morning together, so we did have a vested interest in swimming itself. We thought one of the pluses could be that the new co-located school could have a swimming pool, at least a small swimming pool like the one that is currently at Ashford Special School. So I am very disappointed in looking at the plans that this does not seem to have been incorporated. We are now two education ministers on, so I guess the intention of the former minister, Jane Lomax-Smith, has been lost somewhere in the ether.

The other point that I would just like to make is that with the co-location I was really hoping that the fairly dismal facilities for the administrative staff and also the staffroom at the William Light School may be improved by this co-location. Sadly, that is not going to happen and it is really very sad that there does not seem to be much effort in looking at, perhaps, jazzing up the front of the school. I am told that the metal louvres at the front of the William Light School were there when it was Plympton high school (as people remember it) and are quite ancient, so I was hoping that there would be some money put aside to look at dressing up the front of the school.

I hope these things will be taken into consideration but, on the whole, I would like to congratulate all of the people who have worked on this campaign. It is quite exciting and I think it will be, overall, really important for a few hundred students to have this co-location and interaction between the Ashford Special School and the William Light School.

The SPEAKER: Thank you and it was nice yesterday to see people from the Ashford Special School in here.

Motion carried.

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