Construction begins on Googong Public School after long wait

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell on Friday turned the first sod and promised 33 classrooms would be open for the start of the 2023 school year.

Googong Residents' Association vice-president Emma-Jane Nagy said it was sorely needed as children could only enrol in the Anglican School Googong, St Gregory's Primary or Queanbeyan South, with no school bus service.

"The demographics have actually been a lot of young families because they were promised and sold the idea of zoned land to be a public primary school and the other zones for the public high school," she said.

The school was originally announced in the 2018-19 state budget. In a March 2019 meeting with representatives from John Barilaro's office and the NSW Department of Education, the Googong Residents' Association was promised the school would open mid-2021 or for term 1, 2022 at the latest.

Mrs Nagy said parents who were expecting a 2022 open date were facing a difficult decision on whether to send their children to a private school or another public school instead.

"It becomes a big dilemma for a lot of our parents and our residents out here: do you move them once they're settled or not?" she said.

She said community consultation had not been a positive experience and queries to the department had gone unanswered.

Ms Mitchell denied there was any delay in the construction of the school, which will cater for up to 700 students.

"I'm very happy with the timeline. I'm confident that it will be able to be delivered on time as scheduled for the beginning of next year," Ms Mitchell said.

"I do think the Googong families are aware of the timeline of the project."

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Mrs Nagy said progress on the school had coincided with the Monaro byelection on February 12.

"We feel mistreated and that we're just here for somebody's headline but this is everyone's day-to-day lives, this is our future children's education that's just being played with," she said.

Rebekah Lindsay has been appointed the inaugural principal of Googong Public School.

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