On April 1st, Rotarian Tracey Smith provided an update of recent activities at the Maryborough Education Centre. Over the last year, the school has been able to direct funds towards a revitalization of the school grounds: $400,000 is being used to build a "veledrome" for wheel chairs, energy breakthrough vehicles and bicycles, whilst $170,000 has been directed towards playground upgrades for the Year 7-8 students, and for special needs students. See "Read more..." for details.
The veledrome has a 3 metre wide track and extends around the oval and into the nearby bushland area. Consideration is being given to adding fitness and water stations along the way. Maybe Rotary could assist with these? The Yr 7-8 playground includes a "Ninja" course including a rock climbing wall, a big cubby hut that looks like a Drover's hut, and a "Special needs" Sensory Wall area that includes activities like big, colourful noughts and crosses games etc.
Funds have been directed towards these much needed assets because the funding formula has changed recently. In the past, funding was based partly on the occupations of parents which included a large percentage of parents in the "Private Business" category and the assumption was that people in private business are well off and have a reasonably high level of education - so funding was less. However, in the Maryborough area, many of the "private business" people are farmers who have not had a high level of education, so now the level of education of parents is taken into account and that has meant that funding has significantly increased. This has meant that more funding can be directed towards improving the grounds.