By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A Dandenong specialist school that’s resorted to teaching in foyers has been given $1.56 million funding for a long-awaited upgrade.
Emerson School is one of 33 Victorian schools given funds to plan for stage 1 of rebuilding the junior-senior campus including new offices, learning areas and a library.
School council president Heather Norman said the campus’s “antiquated portables and established buildings” were “seriously inadequate”.
The school had not had major capital works for nearly 50 years since it opened in 1973, she said.
Its 415-strong student body had outgrown the Heatherton Road campus built for 144 students.
“Emerson has some of the oldest portables in Victoria still in operation.
“The school relies on nine shipping containers to provide storage shortfalls for housing valuable equipment and resources.
“Classes are taking place in foyers.”
Emerson’s main Information Technology and Fibre Optic Centre is based in the senior school foyer, Ms Norman said.
The school is also hoping to include a pedestrian crossing and traffic lights at Heatherton Road as part of stage one.
It is the only Melbourne metropolitan school without a pedestrian crossing or traffic light management, Ms Norman said.
“The extreme danger at the schools’ front gate has long been recognised.
“This traffic project has been supported by the Department of Transport, The City of Greater Dandenong Council, the Department of Education & Training, the Victorian School Building Authority and the Emerson School Council.”
The project’s stage two includes a gymnasium so Physical Education classes are no longer held in rain.
After the stage one masterplan is complete, the school will still have to wait until a future State budget for capital works funding.
The planning process includes ‘bricks and mortar’ training for principals and school leaders from the Victorian School Building Authority.
Yet the school’s principal John Mooney had already managed the building of a $6.1 million middle-school campus in Gloria Avenue in 2012.
The project, originally costed at $10.8 million, was delivered with a saving of $4.7 million. It was funded from within the school’s own budget.
Ms Norman said the school had $4 million ready to inject into the four-stage $49 million upgrade of the junior-senior school.
“The school would like to invite companies, philanthropic associations and private benefactors to donate funds to make the four stage project happen at a faster rate.
“The students of Emerson have been waiting for so long.”
Education Minister James Merlino said the upgrades planning would give a “much needed boost to our economy as we get on with the post pandemic recovery”.
Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams said: “The Andrews Government is supporting schools in Dandenong, and delivering the facilities local students deserve.”
