After years of lobbying, the Latrobe Special Developmental School is set to receive modern facilities as part of a $6 million upgrade announced by the state government.
The funding was announced on Friday by member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing and will be used for stage one of the Traralgon Education Regeneration Project to develop modern infrastructure for the special school and Traralgon College.
Funding for the project was announced as part of a more than $180 million 2018/19 state budget initiative which will upgrade 60 regional schools.
The government has allocated more than $8 million from the fund to upgrade Gippsland schools.
Ms Shing said “every option is on the table” in determining how the funding will be used.
“The next step from here will include meetings, consultation and discussion between the School Building Authority and the [Education] Department along with the schools and their community to develop a preferred option. This might include relocation or shared location [of the two schools] or not,” she said.
“The idea then is that the School Building Authority will move to master planning, design and early site works with this allocation of funding, which is based on what the communities of these schools want as their preferred outcome.”
The Latrobe Special Developmental School is located in Hickox Street, Traralgon and is about 60 years old.
Parents and teachers at the school have been lobbying for new facilities since early 2017.
They complained about inadequate toilet facilities, inappropriate ramps and building entrances which made it difficult for students with wheelchairs to turn around.
Earlier this year, opposition upper house MP Melina Bath tabled a more than 2700-signature petition in State Parliament on behalf of the school community.
On Friday, Ms Bath said she was pleased for the school community but called for the government to engage the community in the development of the project.
“What I want them to hold to is that this funding will meet the needs of the school and [that] the parents and school council and principal will have direct say in what the new school will look like, where it will be and the scope of it to meet those students’ needs,” she said.
