When Koreena Carlton sees a parent pushing a pram from her office window, she often grabs a brochure, rushes outside and introduces herself. “I will ask them how old their kids are, if they want to come check out the school,” says the principal of Debney Meadows primary school, in Melbourne’s inner north.
“The other staff do laugh at me quite a bit. I’m outside every single day – before school, after school. Any community event, someone from the school will be there. We are very active in trying to show people what we do.”
Carlton, who joined the public school in 2021, is on a mission to encourage parents in the Flemington community to send their children to it.
When it first opened in the mid-1970s, Debney Meadows had 575 students. During the pandemic, enrolments were as low as 64.
According to the Victorian education department’s “enrolment pressure index”, which measures demand across state schools, Debney Meadows was at 14% capacity in 2022 – when the most recent data was compiled.
Debney Meadows’ situation is in stark contrast with other primary schools in the increasingly gentrifying inner north of Melbourne.
Less than a kilometre away, the Flemington primary school was at 66% capacity in 2022. The Ascot Vale and Kensington primary schools, each a five minute’s drive from Debney Meadows, were at 77% and 85% respectively.
Experts suggest Debney Meadow’s predicament is likely due to its location. It is wedged between four public housing towers, two of which are slated for demolition by the state government by 2031.
The majority of its students are children of recent migrants and refugees, and 80% are from the most disadvantaged quarter of the Australian community, according to the My School website.
Yet Flemington public school has 344 students, of which 60% are from the most advantaged quarter.
Christina Ho, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, suggests this is a result of “school shopping”, and says it has become more prevalent among middle-class parents in gentrified suburbs across Australia.
“The middle-class families are trying to essentially avoid people from lower-income backgrounds,” she says.
“Perhaps they think that these kids will be more disruptive in class or they’ll be a bad influence on the kids. Sometimes, there is also a racial component if there are a lot of non-Anglo Australian kids, that could be seen as a negative influence.
“There’s often a lot of euphemisms that people will use. They might say a certain school looks very rough. That’s often code for ‘there’s a lot of kids who look like they might be from poor backgrounds’ or from certain ethnic backgrounds.”
It’s a similar story five kilometres away in Carlton.
Carlton Gardens primary school was bursting at the seams at 119% of capacity in 2022, while Carlton North primary school was at 96%.
Yet Carlton primary school – located next to the public housing towers on Drummond and Lygon Street – was at only 23% capacity.
Further east, Richmond primary school was at 89% capacity – in contrast to the nearby Richmond West school, which sits between towers on Highett Street and Lennox Street, which was at 63%.
Tom Greenwell, a Canberra-based teacher and author of Waiting for Gonski: How Australia Failed its Schools, says the country has one of the most segregated school systems in the OECD.
“It overwhelmingly means a concentration of disadvantaged students in public schools,” he says.
School shopping
In Victoria, parents can seek enrolments at a school outside their designated zone. But if that school has limited spaces available, applications are considered using the “priority order of placement”, which prioritises students “who live within the school zone and out of zone siblings”.
Ho says the policy, which is similar in other states, encourages school shopping.
“This has created a culture really of going school shopping. You’re looking around at all the nearby schools, and then sometimes further afield,” Ho says.
Carlton says she is aware of several local families who have chosen to send their children to schools outside the zone.
“The way the policy is, they have a right to do that,” she says.
“I don’t know what it is. I’m not sure why people aren’t choosing the school. It would be lovely to see people come through the doors and see the school, see the work that we do, the level of community engagement that we have.
“It’s a beautiful school with a beautiful culture.”
An education department spokesperson says all Victorian schools “do a fantastic job catering for unique and diverse student demographics” and “sit at the heart of their communities”.
“We’re continuing to invest in inner-city schools to ensure all students have the best facilities and opportunities for success,” they say.
“Debney Meadows is just one fantastic example of many schools going above and beyond to deliver outcomes for every student, no matter their background.”
When Carlton started at Debney Meadows, the state was in the grips of Covid-19. A year earlier, the towers of Flemington and North Melbourne were placed into a hard lockdown with no warning.
Many families, who were offered alternative housing by the Victorian government, had left the school.
“When I came, we saw the number of students enrolled drop to its lowest number of around 64,” she says.
“My job was to start to build back not just enrolments but a school community.”
With a grant from the William Buckland Foundation, the school transformed an empty space into a community hub, which offers playgroups, adult education, as well as dance, homework and sports clubs.
Carlton also set up a school readiness program that prepares preps for school from term two of the previous year. She says program is more comprehensive than what other schools offer, and also begins about six months earlier.
It has seen enrolments bounce back – there are now 118 students at the school, with half either in prep or grade 1.
Other schools are also taking a creative approach to increase enrolments. Fitzroy primary school attracted students and lifted its “disadvantage” profile when it adopted a French bilingual program several years ago.
Since adopting the program, enrolments have doubled to 200 students and is projected to reach 300 in coming years.
Resourcing disparities
But Carlton says at Debney Meadows it is still a struggle to get prospective parents through the doors. She suggests its concrete and brick exterior could be to blame.
“It is a harsh building, when you look at it, Richmond West is the same,” she says.
“But with some funding, we could soften it up, make it more inviting.”
The school is part of the Victorian government’s Flemington education plan but, unlike Ascot Vale and Flemington, which received $3.87m and $1.15m for upgrades in 2020/21, it has not received any funding for capital works beyond $400,000 for planning.
According to Greenwell, segregation between schools is occurring due to resourcing disparities.
He points to a recent federal government-commissioned report, which showed that disadvantaged students who were concentrated with other disadvantaged students at school had worse outcomes compared to being in a classroom with a lot of advantaged students.
“The peers [who] you learn with have a big effect on your student outcomes,” Greenwell says.
“Social cohesion doesn’t just grow on trees. You need to foster it and support it and encourage parents to enrol their children in their local public school and be confident that that school is appropriately resourced.”
Ho points to broader consequences of schools becoming segregated.
“If students are only dealing with people who are like them, then that is a real lost opportunity for them to learn the kinds of skills to gain an understanding about how all sorts of different people live their lives,” she says.
