Paul MurrayOpinionState PoliticsLabor
Opinion: Labor's Perth Modern School plans a social experiment gone wrong
Paul MurrayThe West Australian
Wed, 4 July 2018 2:00AM
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Camera IconInner City Colleage changes Illustration: Don Lindsay Credit: Illustration: Don Lindsay
The McGowan Government's first blood nose came from a group that it would normally expect to be among its supporters: the Perth Modern School community.
Labor had planned to shift the historic academically selective school to a new high-rise building in the city and use the existing Subiaco campus as a local-intake senior high school.
Educationally, the city-based college was little more than a fashion statement, an urban chic thought bubble that was never properly explained.
However, that original policy — if it's not too grand a word for it — lies in tatters.
What remains is shaping up as a risky social experiment into whether traditional suburban residents are as keen on high-density, public transport-dependent living as the inner-city urbanites, who were the target of the initial idea, are supposed to be.
Labor's Perth candidate John Carey went to the polls last year promising a new $45 million inner-city high school in the CBD despite mounting uproar over the lack of consultation about Perth Modern.
"We need an inner-city school for Perth," he said on election night. "I was disappointed to see Perth Modern parents actually handing out how-to-vote cards telling people to vote Liberal.
"As a group of that nature it is fine to lobby on individual issues but to hand out how-to-votes is … disappointing."
Even though Carey was assured of winning Perth, Labor splashed plenty of money on his campaign and the inner-city high school policy.
One full-page advertisement showed the MP, who is single and has no children of his own, striding over a crosswalk with a mother and child obviously on their way to school under the headline: "Only John Carey and Labor will deliver an inner city high school".
The policy was in direct contrast to the Barnett government's plans for an $84 million upgrade to the old City Beach high school site by 2020 to attack the same issue: intense enrolment pressures on Shenton College and the Churchlands and Mt Lawley senior high schools.
Within three months of the election, Education Minister Sue Ellery — whom Carey singled out in his inaugural speech as "my often bold mentor, regularly keeping my sanity and ego in check, and great friend" — had done the first of her backflips and axed the relocation of Perth Modern and the proposed CBD school after the fiery campaign intensified.
Instead, on June 13, Ellery announced a new "inner-city secondary school to be built at Kitchener Park" as part of a plan "to transform Subiaco Oval into a vibrant new community precinct".
It was a pig in a poke to solve two pressing problems.
"The State Government will allocate $68 million for stage one of the school, to open for Year 7 students in 2020," Ellery said. "The college will expand to cater for 2000 students to Year 12 by 2025.
"Perth Modern School is not part of the new precinct and will remain on its current site on Roberts Road as the State's only fully selective academic school."
Architect Neil Cownie wrote to Ellery urging her to reconsider the speed of the development, asking if there was an open architectural competition to design the school and what steps had been taken to ensure best practice design and pedagogy attributes.
Cownie wrote on his Urban Crusade website that her response "only vaguely" addressed his concerns:
"Inner City College will be a modern, dynamic and highly regarded secondary school offering the best educational facilities available. Due process has been followed during the procurement of the architect and the sub-consultants documenting the new school," Ellery said.
Apart from the compressed planning, design and approvals period, shoe-horning such a complicated project into a very constrained 2ha site in a busy location was always going to pose questions.
Last month, the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority's Subiaco sub-committee met to approve the plans for the new school on Roberts Road.
One of just 24 public submissions noted: "Three senior schools within 2.5km of each other does not make sense."
At least someone saw the elephant in the room, which resulted from the CBD thought-bubble imploding.
To which the MRA officers could offer only this lame response: "Noted, however the State Government identified the Kitchener Park site for the proposed school."
In other words, it was a fait accompli.
And to public concerns that the new school for 2000 students with 200 staff would have just 60 parking bays — 50 for staff, 10 for visitors — the response was:
"Noted, it is considered that the proposal presents an appropriate balance of parking, traffic management and alternative transport, including use of the adjacent train and cycle network."
Much of the documentation about the new college is predicated on changed social behaviour, including the high use of public transport.
However, the committee was told that Shenton College, just over 3km away and also right on the railway line, with a capacity of 2600 students, had more than 400 parking bays.
The Education Department's secondary school planning guide suggests 10 staff bays and seven general parking bays per 100 students. The teachers' union works on one bay for each staff member.
The Government recently endured savage rows over hospital staff parking. There is little room for more bays on the ICC site if things turn sour.
The committee was told Shenton College had 45 bays for parents' pick-up and drop-off and short-term parking to try to alleviative issues they were having at peak times. The ICC has nine such bays.
Then there are the issues for students and teachers coming from the northern part of the catchment area. Perth Modern's commuters can catch the train to Leederville station and have a relatively short walk to school.
Not so for the ICC students, who each day face two trips through the city station or two long hikes from Leederville station to Roberts Road, which will be a two-way thoroughfare by then.
Labor may well be encouraging a Metronet generation. Whether their parents are so keen is yet to be seen.
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