10th May 2011

After missing out on funding last year, Hume Valley School is finally able to enter “21st century learning” after a budget windfall.
The Broadmeadows school was allocated $4million in the 2011-12 state budget released last week, with a further $5million over the next four years.

The Broadmeadows Special Developmental School received $500,000, with another $3.5million allocated over the next four years. Both schools — part of the Broadmeadows Schools Regeneration Project involving 11 schools across nine campuses — missed out on funding in last year’s budget.

Hume Valley School principal Diane Bassett said the funding would be used to rebuild on the school’s current site. The new building will feature flexible design spaces to enable teachers to work collaboratively. “A lot of people have put in lot of hard work and resources. Now we will have wonderful facilities to undertake 21st century learning.” She said the school’s 240 students were excited about the project that had been in the pipeline since 2004.

School council president Wendy Vistarini said: “Being a special school our kids face a lot of challenges, so to see modern teaching methods and our kids having the opportunity to take advantage of that is just fantastic.”

Broadmeadows MP Frank McGuire said that while the funding was “a promising start” to complete Labor’s regeneration project, he would continue to lobby the Coalition government to ensure the projects were fully funded. Despite this, he said the budget overall lacked vision. Of most concern was the Coalition’s failure to commit to the relocation of the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit, Vegetable and Flower markets to Epping, which had the potential to create 10,000 jobs.

Yuroke MP Liz Beattie said she was disappointed Greenvale had missed out on new bus services. She said the government had also failed to commit to a 24-hour ambulance service in Craigieburn, which was promised under Labor.