The ACT Education Minister says cancelling the registration and funding of Brindabella Christian College is "the last option", as the school comes under fire for spending thousands on a robot dog while failing to pay superannuation on time.
Yvette Berry said the non-government schools regulator and the Commonwealth government have been paying close attention to matters at the college.
"The last thing we want to see is a school closed. We want to try and keep the schools open and operating in the best possible way. So that's why we're continuing to work with them," Ms Berry said.
"That doesn't mean that at some point in the future we might have to put in some more regulations for that particular school around their compliance. But we're just continuing to work with them about what that might look like."
Education Department officials told a Senate estimates hearing last week that the school was not compliant with a number of conditions placed on its approval and the only two options the department had left were to pause or cease funding the school.
The federal Education Department refused to answer questions about when a decision on withdrawal of funding would be made.
"As this is an ongoing compliance case, the department does not wish to comment publicly," a department spokesperson said.
The ACT Education Directorate was asked about what steps the non-government schools registrar was planning to take but did not respond by deadline.
After raising the issue in estimates, ACT Senator David Pocock said on ABC radio he would be meeting with the school next week.
"They haven't been paying staff superannuation at the same time as they've spent over $100,000 on a robot from the US," Mr Pocock said.
"There are some very legitimate questions to be answered here. No one wants to see a school have their funding stopped, but talking to the department that's their only next step, to pause funding to ensure that they have the right governance in place to actually run a school well."
Ms Berry refused to comment on whether purchasing a Spot robot from Boston Dynamics and flying school representatives to the United States was a good use of the school's resources amid its financial situation.
"I understand the community's frustration, particularly Brindabella Christian College School parents' and families' frustration with the operation of the school currently, but I guess guess my message to them would be that the independent schools regulator is working very closely on this matter, as are I understand the Commonwealth government," Ms Berry said.
The Education Minister said the regulators were stepping through the situation before getting to the point of making a decision to deregister the school.
"That would that is the last option for us and we want to try and avoid that if we can," she said.
"This is an unusual situation ... it's unique. And we want to make sure that we get it right and that's why we've changed the legislation to include a non-government school regulator, and more regulation on independent schools, more visits to understand regulation is being complied with."
