THE lack of a public high school in rapidly growing Medowie is a disservice to the area's more than 1000 students required to travel elsewhere for their education, an inquiry has heard.
Medowie mum and chemical engineer Marnie Coates appeared on Wednesday before the Inquiry into Planning and Delivery of School Infrastructure in NSW to advocate for a public high school in the suburb.
"We bus over a thousand students out of our suburbs to high school every day and some of them are travelling over two hours per day on buses to get to school," Ms Coates said.
"There's 1000 properties currently approved and under construction and council predicts that by 2036, there'll be an additional 7000 dwellings in Medowie.
"Besides that, the surrounding satellite suburbs that would logically be zoned for a Medowie high school are also rapidly expanding.
"The land has been purchased [on Ferodale Road in 1983]... we've had various promises, but nothing's been delivered to date."
Member of the parliamentary committee, MP Courtney Houssos, said the Catholic and independent sectors had "acknowledged there's a need and they've stepped in" .
The suburb is home to Medowie Christian School and Catherine McAuley Catholic College.
"But it's the public school system that isn't providing local options for parents," Ms Houssos said.
"You have a clear need, you have a site, you've had consistent promises from the government, but they've completely failed to deliver."
Port Stephens MP Kate Washington praised Ms Coates for her appearance and her written submission.
"It's not often that local residents are willing to appear before a parliamentary inquiry and fight for their local community," she said.
"But that's exactly what Marnie has done today and she did us all proud.
"The current situation is not fair and Marnie was speaking for thousands of families across Medowie, the Tilligerry Peninsula, Karuah, Williamtown and Salt Ash, who desperately want a public school in Medowie," Ms Washington said.
During her testimony, Ms Coates rejected the government's plan to upgrade Irrawang and Hunter River high schools instead of building one in Medowie.
"Any expansion won't even meet the current projected growth, so we're going to end up with a bad situation for our kids," she said.
"I can only assume, from a financial perspective, that it's cheaper for the government to stick a few more classrooms onto those schools than it is to properly plan the infrastructure that's needed for Medowie."
Ms Washington said the government was "ignoring the needs of our community and our children by taking the cheapest option and failing to deliver on their promise from 2011".
"They've had 11 years to deliver a public high school in Medowie, but they haven't," she said.
A Department of Education spokesperson said modelling showed "population growth in the Medowie area and surrounds is not sufficient demand to warrant a new high school" but it continued to monitor population growth and demographic trends "to ensure that future demand can be met".
