By TOM HAYES

 

NEARLY 600 people have signed a petition created by Lowanna College students, who want their lunch passes reinstated.

At Lowanna College, students could previously apply for lunch passes – requiring permission from a parent/carer, allowing them to leave school grounds during lunch.

As of Monday, December 2, Lowanna College no longer provide lunch passes for students for the purpose of leaving school grounds during breaks. Instead, the school will require the parents/guardians to provide consent, sign the student out via Compass (online system), or approve early departure by calling the front administration or mini school office.

Students, parents and carers were notified of this in an email from Lowanna College Acting Principal, Julia Niamh on Friday, November 29, meaning they had no time to react to the news before the next school day.

Ms Niamh also wrote: “The Lowanna College canteen has the capacity to accommodate student numbers at the college, and our on-site café is available for Year 12 students”.

“I encourage students to support our on-site business during school hours.”

The letter clearly didn’t soften the blow, as students didn’t take well to the news.

Lowanna College students Larissa Toet and Lisa Watson shared with the Express how they felt when the news was delivered to them.

“It wasn’t discussed with anyone. We didn’t even get a chance to fight it, it was just there,” Larissa said.

“I was abruptly evoked, and there was no nothing about it,” Lisa added.

The Lowanna students were quick to react, creating a petition with hopes of reinstating the lunch passes for Year 11 and 12 students.

“I just made one just randomly, and I sent the link in a group chat and my friend Kai (Welch) he really liked the idea, and he added way more that what I had (to the description). At lot of the language in the petition is his,” Larissa said.

Once the petition had reached around 100 signatures, during an assembly the students were asked to remove the petition from the change.org website.

“We didn’t expect to get 50, we expected our friend group and a few Year 12s and that’s it,” Larissa said.

But this only appears to have heightened the issue for Lowanna College, as the petition gained more traction, blowing out to 599 signatures at the time of print.

It’s not just the affected students that are signing either, younger students, parents and even past students have been frequent in the petition comments.

“We were definitely surprised,” Larissa added.

“I stand up for the kids 100 per cent,” Larissa’s mother, Helen, said.

Getting a lunch pass is seen as a privilege by students, who say they look forward to the time they enter Year 11, becoming eligible to do so.

Dozens of students leave the campus at lunch, many returning during the break, ensuring not to miss their following class.

Now that the no lunch pass policy is in full effect, lunch time looks a bit different for many students at Lowanna.

“We don’t leave the building anymore. Everyone basically has their areas in the yard, it doesn’t look like it, but everyone has their areas,” Larissa said.

“Even last year, a lot of the Year 12s would go out and sit at Danbos and relax because, as much as it’s okay sharing the (on-site) café with teachers, there’s a lot of teachers that use that space not leaving much space for the kids.”

“None of us leave the building. We’ve got a really, really small kitchen, and basically, we just stay inside all the time now,” Lisa added.

Ms Toet (Helen) believes it would be quite simple to set up and signing in and out system for students which can be implemented in cases of emergency.

“That is something we would be completely willing to do if that was the extra step that we had to take to go down the street,” Larissa added.

Another issue that was raised was the fact that students couldn’t be monitored if they were using their mobile phones or not off the campus.

Lowanna College students are not permitted to use mobile phones during school hours, which has also raised concerns with students and parents/guardians.

“They said they weren’t going to budge on the phone rule, and they’ve said that for years,” Larissa said.

In the initial email provided to students, parents and guardians, announcing the fact that lunch passes would no longer be available, Ms Niamh cited Department of Education’s Duty of Care policy, last updated in 2020.

Ms Niamh points to the line: “students must be supervised during recess and lunch”.

Her letter also states: “After seeking advice from the Department’s legal branch, I have been advised that the current practice does not comply with the legal requirements to meet appropriate levels of duty of care.”

However, in the petition’s description, the Lowanna students alluded to the fact that in the Department of Education’s more-recently-updated policy, Supervision of Students (2021), it also points to similar facts that contradict the backing of the Duty of Care policy.

Students pointed to the subheading ‘Supervision responsibilities during school hours’. The policy states: Students must be supervised during recess and lunch. For students who seek to leave school premises during lunch or recess, procedures must be in place that incorporate:

-Written parent/carer requests for students under 18, and;

-Short and long-term lunch passes.

It appears to students that lunch passes must not force a discrepancy in the Duty of Care policy, according to the most recently updated policy.

The Express contacted Lowanna College for a response, however, was told questions regarding lunch passes had to be directed to the Department of Education.

“The school is working with the department to ensure compliance with duty-of-care requirements,” a Department of Education spokesperson said.

Also within the petition, students are worried that Danbos, the café in close quarters that also supports Lowanna College’s on-site café, will have their usual customers taken away.

The students predict that Danbos may pull its funding which would not only hinder the on-site café, but also students who are undergoing barista courses. The students have noticed that the on-site café is no long using Danbos’ cups for coffees.

Danbos owner Daniel Chessells was contacted for a comment, but the Express did not receive a response before print.