Woady PS gets cash for major fixes

THE four campuses of Woady Yaloak Primary will be undergoing major works after an announcement of money from the State Government.

Revealed at the Ross Creek site last week, the school is set to receive $435,000 from the Planned Maintenance Program.

Principal Corey Pholner said the money would be used to catch up on a range of maintenance tasks, not just at Ross Creek but also the Smythesdale, Scarsdale and Snake Valley campuses.

“Our annual budget for planned maintenance is around $60,000 over four sites,” he said. “We’ve probably spent that already.

“It’s just not possible to do major things like roof upgrades, guttering, painting and things like that without that support from the government.”

Woady Yaloak Primary has a range of infrastructure across its sites, from historical buildings at Smythesdale and Scarsdale, to Ross Creek where the school is about 15 years old but backs onto a swamp that creates drainage issues.

Mr Pholner was positive on the system that allocated the money to the school so the works could be undertaken.

“We’re very fortunate in Victoria because there is a planned maintenance system, a maintenance portal,” he said.

“Our report was 132 pages of all maintenance issues over our four sites, and this site allocates that into priorities. It’s not just making up what needs to be done, it’s a really structured system.

“You start and the roof and go down. If the roof leaks it effects things inside the school.”

The Woady Yaloak Primary money came out of a larger pot set aside for schools in the Buninyong electorate that also included $5000 for Lethbridge Primary to fix plumbing issues.

Local member Michaela Settle noted that the funding was system generated and decided by the education department based on need.

“The school authority works with the schools to talk each year about what their school needs and what repair needs happening,” she said. “It’s worked out on a case-by-case basis.”

Across the state 230 schools split $10.4 million as part of the current round of the Planned Maintenance Program.

“That builds on the $27 million that was invested in 2020,” Ms Settle said.

“We want to ensure that our students, wherever they live in Victoria, have the best buildings to learn in to compliment the wonderful teaching that happens,”