NSW: Hinton Public School - Save Our Teacher!

Parents from the small village of Hinton, near Maitland, took a fight over school staffing ratios to State Parliament on Tuesday, pleading  with the government not to strip their school of a teacher because enrolments are short just four students.

Hinton Public School, the second oldest to continually operate in the state, has 100 students but needs enrolments to return to at least 104 or it will lose one of its five teachers from next term.

Parents and Citizens Association member Karin Hines said students would have to form a years 3, 4, 5 composite class of 28 because of the strict application of the student-teacher ratio.

At Parliament, P&C members met with Maitland MP Robyn Parker, senior bureaucrats of the Department of Education and Training and a representative for Education Minister Adrian Piccoli.

Their concerns were also a subject of Question Time, when Labor education spokeswoman Carmel Tebbutt asked Mr Piccoli whether the government would listen to the Hinton community as was promised under the government’s ‘‘Local Schools Local Decisions’’ policy.

The government is cutting $1.7billion from the education budget over four years.

P&C committee president Linda Siever said the school community understood ‘‘we’re not the only ones’’ but was appealing for consideration of its size.

‘‘This little school is already feeling the effects of the government’s education cuts,’’ she said.