Page 1003 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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and sometimes the Prime Minister, contradict chief ministers, while at the same time telling parents that they should listen to their first ministers? Mr Rattenbury referred to the radio this morning, and one caller said, “We’re damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t,” and that is right.
I want to finish by saying thank you. Thank you to teachers and their unions, thank you to parents, and thank you to the Education Directorate and Ms Berry.
MS LEE (Kurrajong) (4.02): In closing, I find it quite interesting that the three ministers who spoke to my motion all went on to say that it is an important issue but clearly only when they are discussing it. According to them, the motion that I moved here today is not worthy of debate in this chamber because it is “political pointscoring”. That was a quote from the Chief Minister. It is an enormous disrespect to the thousands of parents, students and teachers who this government has failed. I will not stop being a voice for those people, and I will bring their voices here again. One parent said:
My husband and I are both working full time, and we would like to send our kids back to school; they are desperate for social contact. However, their local school is closed, and we just don’t think it’s an acceptable option to send them to an entirely new school with people they don’t know and with carers they’ve never met before. That is entirely different from what we thought was going to happen.
Another said:
For the last three weeks of the school term the ACT public schools went pupil free. During this period we tried to perform our jobs from home whilst at the same time supporting our children through their online learning. It was almost impossible to do both. So for term 2 we have no other option but to send our children to one of the schools that will be open in the ACT. This has created enormous pressure in our family as well as anxiety in our children.
Another said:
My son was diagnosed last year as having autism spectrum disorder. Due to successive failures by the school, my son has only recently been provided an individual learning plan. He is now several years behind his peers in skills such as handwriting and written expression, plus social development. We were pinning hopes on the changes and support due as part of the ILP on him being able to regain some of that learning delay this year. To do this my son absolutely needs face-to-face teaching and he absolutely needs it to be consistent.
Another said:
Given the schools have remained open to assist those of us who must still attend our place of work, most of us being in health and emergency services, we just do not have the flexibility, and especially at short notice. A few of our parents are ED nurses. They work long shifts and found out today they have no after-school care. All this government has done is add stress on families who are already quite stressed due to COVID.
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