With Plantation Park and Bruce Highway affected by flooding most weekend and into Monday, several schools in the Burdekin were forced to take alternative action on account of their teachers and students unable to travel safely to and from school.
Trans North also advised that no school buses would operate in the Ayr, Giru, Woodstock, Rita Island, Airville, Brandon, Alva Beach, Osborne, Gumlu and Inkerman areas on 10 February as a result.
This left some schools with no option but to revert back to covid protocols to run some of their classes.
“With no buses running due to the floods, we’ve all been impacted,” says Sharon O’Neill, the Principal at Home Hill State High School.
“It’s unsettling for our students but we have Q-learn, our online learning portal, while teacher wellbeing is really important. We’ve encouraged anyone not to travel through the floodwaters and asked both our students and teachers to present to their nearest school, whether that’s in Ayr or Home Hill,” she declares.
Thankfully, Ayr State High School and Home Hill State High School, have both worked together to ensure no one misses out on their education or teaching, as Sharon explains.
“It’s been fantastic. All the principals have been in contact with each other and supporting one another. Being partner towns we share staff and support. As a result, we’re able to keep instructions going over all classes,” she adds.
With the constant rains over the weekend that continued Monday morning, many students and teachers were left on opposite sides of the bridge, affecting attendance numbers.
“We have four teachers who live this side in Home Hill, of about our 20 teachers all up. But we also have five Ayr State High School teachers with us and some teacher aides helping out. We then have some of our teachers who live on the north side, working direct out of Ayr State High.”
“It’s great to build a relationship, and keep things going for one another,” Sharon enthuses.
At Burdekin Christian College, Ashlee Butler, Student Services Officer & Marketing, assures it’s business as usual.
“We haven’t been too affected, thanks to our own private bus service and online portal. We’ve currently got students who weren’t able to attend, taking our online safety course, OnGuard. While any teachers unable to come in are conducting their classes in the online space. It’s similar to what we implemented during our covid,” Ashlee states.
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