NSW Teachers Federation Deputy President Henry Rajendra and Senior Vice President Amber Flohm will be visiting Kangaroo Valley, Bundanoon and Hill Top on Tuesday 28 January 2020 as the school year begins, to lend support to teachers and principals and to ensure the needs of fire affected schools and communities are being met.
Henry Rajendra and Amber Flohm will be available for media interviews as they visit fire affected communities in the Southern Highlands. They will also be available for radio programming interviews.
They will visit the following schools to meet with teachers on Tuesday 28 January 2020:
Kangaroo Valley Public School, 130 Moss Vale Road, Kangaroo Valley 10am to 10.30am
Bundanoon Public School, 14 Church St Bundanoon 12noon to 12.30pm
Hill Top Public School, Linda St Hill Top 2pm to 2.30pm.
Bushfire damaged schools and local communities in parts of NSW devastated by fires will need enormous support to get back to normal.
“Going back to school this year will be a difficult and emotional time for children, teachers and parents and the NSW Teachers Federation wants to help wherever we can to make sure schools can get back to giving our kids the best possible education,” Mr Rajendra said.
“We are traveling to the bushfire affected schools to listen and learn because we want to make sure everything possible is being done to deal with the emotional, psychological physical and financial distress caused by this devastation.”
Mr Rajendra said the NSW Teachers Federation would continue to work with the Minister and the Department of Education to ensure affected schools have the necessary resources including school counsellors and other specialist support available to assist children in need for as long as it takes to help them cope with what they have seen and experienced.
To assist our members the NSW Teachers Federation has doubled payments available to teachers under the union’s Emergency Relief Fund to support them to purchase teaching resources lost in the bushfires and not covered by insurance. Members can apply for payments of up to $1,000 for replacement of teaching resources. This is being applied retrospectively to September when the bush fires started wreaking havoc in communities across NSW. Members suffering financial hardship because of the fires can also apply for an exemption of up to six months from their membership fees to the union.
“We want to assist wherever we can and the payments being made available to affected teachers are a practical way we can show support and solidarity at this difficult time,” Mr Rajendra said.
Media contact John Hill 0412 197 079