Working families in Gooloogong are being forced to cut back on work and travel long distances for care, as the town continues to wait for certainty regarding early childhood education and after-school services.
The local P&C says families feel they have been ‘strung along’ after three years of working in good faith with the NSW Labor Government without a clear outcome or commitment.
Nationals Member for Cootamundra, Steph Cooke, said the community has waited long enough for answers.
“What they’re looking for is really simple and straightforward,” Ms Cooke said. “They need a preschool and before and after-school care. It’s not rocket science, and quite frankly, this community deserves better.”
Ms Cooke said families were deeply concerned about the long-term future of Gooloogong Public School if support services were not delivered.
“Not too far from here, we’ve seen two schools close in the last 18 months. It is not unreasonable that the community here would be very concerned about the future of their own school,” she said.
“What we’re seeing at the moment is parents having to pull their kids out of school or not enrol them to begin with, because they end up taking their child to a larger centre that meets the working requirements of their parents.”
Local parent Marissa Tedder is among those forced to make difficult decisions due to the lack of childcare options.
“I recently had to go to my employer of eight years and say to them, I actually cannot continue working here because I can’t do the daily travel, and I can’t do the hours that you require me to do due to the lack of daycare,” Ms Tedder said.
She added that Gooloogong offered an incredible lifestyle for her young family, but essential services were missing.
“We have everything we need right here, and we can make it successful if, if we’re allowed to,” she said.
Fourth-generation local farmer, Phillip Gray, who attended Gooloogong Public School himself and now has young children of his own, said reliable childcare and after-school care were critical to keeping families in town.
“It was challenging to have kids at school and at daycare [in another town], and then with work to try and fit it all in. In regard to dropping the kids off, there’s always a time constraint to be able to get back and finish off the jobs you had planned for the day.”
Gooloogong Public School P&C President Emma Marr said families had spent three years working constructively with the Department of Education to secure a sustainable childcare model that would support both local children and working parents.
She said the uncertainty was exhausting families and placing pressure on the school’s future.
“We’ve very easily lost over a quarter of our children to school buses,” she said.
“Just last week, we had an inquiry from a family for enrolment to the school, and because we don’t have after-school care, they’ve now gone to Cowra.”
“We need the department to stop stringing this along. Our families are exhausted.”
