By Colin MacGillivray
PARENTS and teachers of Kilmore’s closed Colmont School have thrown their weight behind a push to re-register the school under a new administrative team.
The international baccalaureate, IB, school, formerly The Kilmore International School, which was established in 1990, closed its doors in late July after falling more than $6 million in debt and was deregistered by the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, VRQA.
Businessman Ayub Khan is leading a campaign to restore the school for 2023, including the revival of The Kilmore International School, TKIS, name.
Mr Khan outlined his plan to save the school at a meeting last month, with a large contingent of parents and teachers impressed by his pitch.
Former IB coordinator Deanna Krilis said she was immediately interested when Mr Khan approached her with his proposal.
“This is a prized educational facility that did not need to shut down. If there is an opportunity for it to reopen, the community deserves it, our children deserve it and our staff deserve it,” she said.
“There is a very high number of teachers and non-teaching staff as well who have struggled to move on. They, like a lot of families, moved to this area and bought houses in this community because they want to invest in their workplace.”
Fellow TKIS teacher Julie Daniells said enduring interest to revive the school was a sign of its special culture.
“With the [TKIS] students, if they need to be brought up, everyone brings them up. If they’re down everyone lifts them. It’s the same for staff too,” she said.
“To have that support and backing from your colleagues and your friends is something that’s really hard to replicate somewhere else.
“It’s an almighty fight to right a wrong and get back what this community deserves, and it’s been going since the day the announcement [of the school’s closure] was made.
“The parents know what their children had when they were here, and they want it back.”
Parents fight for school
School parent Alok Thakur said he believed the school would come back ‘one way or another’.
He said he believed administrators from Vince and Associates initially appointed during Colmont’s collapse had failed to give Mr Khan’s pitch due consideration.
“Early on when we were told this is a private business and we couldn’t do much about it, it didn’t really feel right,” he said.
“Unlike other businesses where the relationship between the client and the business is monetary … this is very different. This is our kids – their future, their academics. It’s non-tangible, but it’s still very valuable; much more valuable than the school itself.
“That was not counted anywhere in this whole equation. They were just looking at it blindly from a business perspective, and that was completely wrong.”
Fellow parent Leight Leigh Eeles said his son had struggled in the public school system before relocating to TKIS, and found it difficult to come to terms with the school’s closure.
He said he initially wrote off the school when its dire financial situation became public, but that Mr Khan’s campaign gave him renewed faith.
“My wife describes the school as a unicorn, so we said, ‘well, the unicorn is gone’,” he said.
“Once we heard there was a plan for a new administrative model, we thought there was hope to open the school again.
“We needed some people with some real skills to run the administrative side, because the skills on the teaching side were there. You couldn’t ask for any more from a teaching perspective and we had the kids who wanted to attend.”
Community benefit
Ms Daniells said the school’s track record of academic excellence, coupled with teachers and families who remained committed to seeing it revived, should give the VRQA reason to support Mr Khan’s bid.
“We’re in a massive growth area and schools should be being built, not closed,” she said.
“We have the capability to reinstate something that will benefit employment in the area and students, not just academically but also on the wellbeing side.
“The money that gets spent in the town is huge for the companies and small businesses that relied on the school, particularly when the international component of it opens up again. It’s not just the school, it is so much bigger than that.”
Nationals candidate for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland met with parents at the school last week, describing its sudden closure as ‘an incredible blow’.
She said she would do whatever she could to support its re-registration.
“The school has a strong academic reputation and has contributed greatly to the community,” she said.
“The process has been incredibly chaotic. I want the Victorian Government to work proactively with teachers and parents so the school can be re-registered.”
Mr Khan described a meeting with VRQA chief executive Jonathan Kaplan earlier this month as ‘productive’ and said he had engaged a specialist lawyer to help with the school’s bid for registration.
He said he had also been in contact with the office of Education Minister Natalie Hutchins.
