A private boarding school north of Melbourne has blindsided students, announcing it has been placed into administration and most classes will wrap up this week.
The move will force hundreds of students to find a new place to study halfway through the school year.
Colmont School, formerly known as the Kilmore International School until July 1 this year, also operated as a boarding school for international students.
Students in grade 3 to year 10 will finish on Friday, while students in years 11 and 12 will continue for a brief period as families transition to other schools.
The school is one of fewer than 25 institutions in the state that offer the International Baccalaureate diploma programme (IB), making transitions to other schools offering the VCE challenging.
Students are 'very scared' about the future
Year 12 student Tiffany Lamb was shocked by the announcement.
"I'm five weeks away from my mock exams, I'm almost at the finish line," she said.
"I'm just finalising everything and now I might have to look for another school."
She said the IB was a cumulative two-year program and that students' final exams encompassed content they learned at the start of year 11, making it difficult to switch programs.
"It's impossible to go to VCE because we cannot do units three and four [year 11 subjects], we can't complete a VCE year 12 because we haven't been there," she said.
Tiffany said some students had received offers of support from schools that teach the IB, but that the travel requirements to reach the school campuses weren't feasible.
A year 11 student, Grace Aldridge, said many of the students are fearful about the future.
"My friends are very scared, I'm very scared," she said.
Parents criticise lack of communication from school
Parents were notified about the closure on Wednesday via email from the state education body, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA).
One parent said they only became aware of the Colmont School's dire financial circumstances after hearing about it from her daughter.
"My daughter came running in telling me to check my emails," the parent said.
"There was a flurry of social media activity and then we found out that there was apparently a meeting at the Kilmore Town Hall that not everyone had been invited to."
She said while they had received notification from VRQA, there had been no official communication from the school.
"I don't know who was invited to the meeting and who wasn't, so we've still heard nothing from the school ourselves, just a couple of letters from the administrators," she said.
The shock closure of the school comes despite the school stating on its website that the campus was "nearing full capacity", with the school planning to acquire a new site to expand the school further to include students from prep to year 2.
Liquidator says school requested government support
Ian Grant, an accountant working to liquidate the school, said its financial problems were due to decreasing enrolments of international students throughout the pandemic.
He said the school had tried several avenues to resolve the issues, including reaching out for support from federal and state governments and applying for funds through private lenders.
"As additional funding and finance has not been forthcoming, the directors could not continue to operate the school," he said.
Mr Grant said the liquidators can't afford to run the school till the end of the year, even for senior students.
"Our main concern right now is continuing the education of the year 11 and year 12 students and transitioning them to another school."
Premier Daniel Andrews did not rule out assisting families affected by the school's closure, but reiterated private schools fell outside of the government's purview.
"We have had from time to time a number of schools that are outside our jurisdiction that have fallen on hard times and we've supported them and the school community. This would be no different," Mr Andrews said.
"But as they say it may not be a matter for us, we may not be able to do much for them."
