Yasmeen Roghay, former treasurer, Colorado Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association
A second meeting was held on Thursday November 21 and residents were not happy with the response to whether the children will be given an opportunity to apply first, if not on a waiting list or awaiting placement between grades 1 and 3 with the new Washington Primary School (“Washington Drive ready for new school year,” Plainsman, November 13) in Colorado Park.
The children already attending a school or who have been accepted will still need to travel to the relevant school where they are attending or where they have been accepted.
The community is concerned with this as stated in our meeting as when registration happened at the beginning of the year 2019, we did not know of this school and therefore we did not get the opportunity to apply.
Parents should be allowed to come forward with their acceptance letters should they wish for their children to attend the new school and thereafter the waiting list should be used for selection.
Ward 75 councillor Joan Woodman, responds: I shared the attached correspondence that was forwarded to me from the Department of Education.
I never made any mention that the children of Colorado will not be given first preference. What I said was those parents who registered their children in February 2019, and their children who are not placed in any school and are on the waiting list, will get first preference.
In the meeting, the interim plan to establish Washington Drive Primary School was discussed.
The names of pupils, parents, contact details, current school the pupils are at, the grade for 2020 – this information had to be sent by Tuesday December 3, and three parents from the transferred pupils will be chosen as part of the interim school governing body (SGB), initiated by the circuit manager and Lynn Primo, from the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).
They will establish an interim SGB which will consist of a circuit manager, principal (on contract appointed by the circuit manager to start school), three parents and one co-opted member from the ratepayers’ association.
The above stakeholders will do the recruitment and selection of seven teachers (all on contract and subject to WCED procedures and processes), one admin person and one cleaner
Staff establishment, allocation is subject to WCED approval.
Once the school has started, there will be an election of a permanent SGB. They will do the recruitment and selection of permanent staff, excess teachers and new recruits will be given preference.
We cannot automatically transfer teachers who live in the area as the WCED has a process for recruitment and selection.
Resources needed will be stationery, textbooks, to name a few, that will be procured by Metro South Education District. These will be stored in Ottery in the interim.
We will propose to register the school as a no-fee paying school. No fees only mean that the school will be funded differently, with less burden on parents. This has nothing to do with your income.