Duval High school was built because Armidale High had become too big, having to cater for one thousand students. Now we are faced with a school for 1500 student. Such big schools disadvantage students. One draw card for people to move from the city to Armidale is that their children won’t have to attend such mammoth schools. Why is this change being suddenly thrust upon the community?

The article in the paper suggests that students will be attracted away from the Independent schools in the city in favour of the Super school. I can see the opposite happening with the Independent schools attracting students away from the public school because of its enormous size.

Why has there not been community consultation? Where is all this money coming from? Wouldn’t it be better to share it with other schools in our town and region to update a number of education facilities? Not only has the State Government forced amalgamations of Councils, it seems that now they are forcing schools to amalgamate.

As a former student of Armidale High I protest strongly about the demolition of the historic school. As the mother of students who attended Duval High I protest about its demolition. As mother of teachers, I protest on their behalf as teaching in such a very large school has many problems. As a former teacher still vitally interested in the education of our young people, I protest. This plan may benefit a few, but it has serious drawbacks and must be rethought with proper community involvement.

On behalf of the Armidale Regional Ratepayers Association, I would like to congratulate Adam Marshall for securing a $65m Super High School for Armidale. 

The school will include a 1000 seat Performing Arts Centre which will be available to the community. What an exciting initiative! Armidale has been wanting a new PAC for years but raising the money for it has always been an impossible task. 

Future management and maintenance of a PAC have also been major issues which have made this community very cautious of such a facility. Including a PAC in the school would solve that problem just as the Hoskins Theatre is managed and maintained by TAS. 

We have such a wonderful pool of Performing Arts talent in Armidale and they deserve a state of the art facility. Well done Mr Marshall and anyone else involved in the submission. 

Residents of Armidale, after our experience of Education department promises that a new model is good for high school education, I can only suggest, "run a mile".

We came to Armidale from Dubbo where they replaced three schools with two and a brand new "senior college". We went to all the meetings and were told how good it was for years 10, 11 and 12 to be on one site.

Of our four children, one thanks to senior college has struggled with education. He got lost in the system and gave up.

We were told the new school would have all these new facilities. As it turned out, the couple of science and design technology rooms were a least 50 per cent less than required. My advice on a sample size of one, a) don’t risk your childrens’ future to a new hair brained scheme that replaces two high schools with one of 1500 students and b) don’t believe anything the education spin doctors say.

We cannot say what would have happened if there had been a normal school available for our youngest but he would have got a lot more individual help. Returning to a single school of 1500 might be convenient for the department but will leave 300 - 400 students annually lost in the system.

We do not need any more disgruntled, bored students in our community. I must add that I have not heard of the outcomes of community consultation. Were there letters in the Express begging the local member for new high schools? Where did the idea originate from? It took about four years of community consultation to get the plans for a new hospital so why is it all to be built by 2019? Plans in the back pocket were they? Can we imagine the impact of 1500 at Duval for two years, on Crest Road? One hundred bus movements a day and twice that on sports day. 

I think we all know clearly that the agenda here is all about staff cuts and saving money and very little to do with improved educational outcomes for students. Traditionally about 80 per cent of the state budget is salaries for public servants and politicians. One school needs one administration unit, one principal and one set of head teachers.

The 60 or 70 teachers would be pared back to 50 in 1:30 ratio, assuming that will not grow to 40 per class, currently the situation in some schools in NSW. Those of us who went through with 40 + per class know that it was a pretty rubbish system.

So what is the solution?

Let's have proper consultation, no spin doctors, renovate one school at a time, starting with Armidale High. Build a new double story block of 10 rooms, demolish the existing ones and rebuild another block until both schools are renewed.