The South Australian Government is considering closing Springbank Secondary College. The school was relaunched just a year ago after staff and students worked together to redesign its focus as a small school by design.

Springbank has been promised a $10m upgrade by the government that has not been delivered. We are heartbroken by this broken promise. 

Springbank has a high proportion of students with disabilities and provides a unique inclusive environment where all students learn and socialise together. Many families have told us they do not know where they will go if the school closes, as their children need a smaller school environment.

The school is growing year-on-year, meeting its government-set targets and has a strong community of teachers, parents and students working together.

Many of our 203 students have transferred from other schools to attend Springbank and report that it is a place where their grades have improved, they feel at home, they feel safe and they feel part of a community.  

The school is two years into a five year turnaround plan. Just last year the SA Education Minister John Gardner relaunched the school and declared it was a "growing school with a lot of energy".  Now he has backflipped. He wants to sell our land, which is home to a much-loved basketball stadium, trade training centre, heritage Tower Arts Centre and sporting ovals used by the community.

With very few local high schools in the area, we envisage that if Springbank closes, much of our current zone will, in the not too distant future, be rezoned to high schools further south and west, as happened to families kicked out of the Adelaide High School zone last year. 

We call on the South Australian Government to

• Retain Springbank Secondary College
• Invest the promised $10m
• Declare a shared zone with Unley High School to give families choice and to enable our two schools to continue to work together to meet the needs of each school’s students.