Doreen resident Sarah Lee is a member of the Secondary School for 3754 Action Group.
I HAVE three children aged two, four and six. I am sure a high school will be operating by the time my eldest is ready to go. While I have a personal interest in lobbying for a high school, I’m involved because I feel young people in this area desperately need one – in either Mernda or Doreen, we don’t care. It’s important to keep the young people feeling part of the community. If they feel they belong, they’re less likely to do silly things. At the moment, some are spending an hour and a half travelling by bus to school each way. That’s a lot to ask of kids who have to do the same amount of homework as kids living five minutes from school. I remember walking home from my own high school, Templestowe Secondary College, with a group of people. It was part of the joy of school, and they’re missing out on that. They’re less likely to live near their classmates and be able to just walk over to visit, and they’re less likely to get involved in after-school sports, because it means they arrive home really late. Members of the community feel a bit ripped off not having a high school when we have such a huge population of families and children. And many built here after being told there was a high school proposed for the area.
We all assumed ‘‘proposed’’ meant it was really coming, not just that, you know, it would be nice! We feel we’ve been conned a bit.
