Why the Bathurst community can say Neil Moon is a liar

Once again Carenne Special School turns to the Western Advocate, Bathurst's local newspaper to try and counter the effect of this blog.

On Tuesday, an article, written presumably by Neil Moon appeared in the "Update from the Principal" section on page 12 appeared in the newspaper. The article goes on to discuss how much the school has benefited from the Building the Education Revolution funding (or Gillard School Building debacle) which has paid for a new library, connector classroom, high support needs student classroom, toilet renovations and a roof over the centre quadrangle of the school. Mention is also made of the new senior classrooms which opened last year, full of problems which the saviours blamed on Michael Auld having the rooms allocated differently to how they would be used in an attempt to get more from the education department.

Mr Moon fails to mention that only the cover over the quadrangle is part of the BER funding and that the other upgrades have been planned since Terry Mahony was principal and will be funded by the state government, as were the four senior classrooms. Once again, Carenne Special School is attempting to prop up the Labor Party and counter the effect on the blog.

After the new building opened last year, Terry Neal, principal at the time was on the local news saying how the school needed to replace the demountable buildings the school had. Almost immediately, the Carenne Saviours came out swinging saying that the school now has nowhere to build new facilities because Michael Auld had arranged for the land at the rear of the school to be leased to Riding for the Disabled, an organisation he is on the committee of. While Carenne will be receiving a new library and high support needs classroom, these are being built in the school's connected classroom and home economics room. It is a refit not a completely new building program. The high support needs classroom is currently a demountable building which leaks and is full of mould. This refit is being funded by the state government, not the BER program. Neil Moon obviously has no idea what is going on or he is just plain out lying.

The article then goes on to praise the Riding for the Disabled program, claiming that it is "traveling along wonderfully", despite claims that certain students are excluded and it being postponed while Melinda Gavin took a holiday. Mr Moon then says about how the school has a therapy farm behind it, despite this being operated by RDA and is presently on hold as the school had been wrongfully funding it. At the staff meeting on 31 May 2010, staff were told that funding was being investigated and that there could be a fee for each student who attends the farm. Once again, Neil Moon is trying to mislead the Bathurst community.

The article ends by mentioning that the school looks forward to working with Denison College on the Trade Training Centre next year. The centre was originally supposed to have been completed much earlier, but the Carenne TTC committee, comprising of Lyn Duncan and Michael Auld managed to have part of the funding allocated to RDA. It is unknown how much RDA received out of the $3.7 million when it was entitled to nothing. This appeared to be just another desperate attempt by Neil Moon to counter what is already on the blog for all to see.