‘I’m not allowed in’: Parents seek answers as school emerges from meltdown

At 8.50am on Monday, five minutes after students at East Preston Islamic College were due to start classes, a scrambled message from the acting principal pinged into teachers’ phones.

“Sorry for the late information but all high school students will be working from home today sorry for any interruption this may cause,” the message read.

Students and parents protested outside East Preston Islamic College last Friday following a series of contentious staffing changes by the new board.Credit:Justin McManus

The panicky alert arrived far too late to be any use to most secondary students, dozens of whom had already arrived at the front gates only to find them locked and guarded by security staff.

For the next hour, more than 60 teenagers in school uniform and a handful of their parents and friends waited in the street, where six police officers stood by, monitoring the restive crowd.

School staff were not among the confused and sometimes angry group.

In the crowd was a year 11 student who expressed disbelief that she and her peers had been left to fend for themselves outside the school gates.

“There are some students that are underage, that have come by public transport, or their parents dropped them off, and they are just left here with no phone, no way to contact home,” the student said.

“I just called my parents and told them I need to go home, but this is unprofessional.”

It was the second consecutive school day that police had been called to the non-government campus, which has become so fractured and unstable in the four weeks since classes resumed this year that it struggled to function this week.

Acting principal Sonya Hammoud, who was appointed to the position less than two weeks ago, has spent her short time in the role managing a school in various states of meltdown.

Protesters outside the college last Friday voiced their support for the former principal and assistant principal, who were both stood down by the board.Credit:Justin McManus

Shortly before midday on Monday, Hammoud issued another message to the school community, blaming that morning’s chaos on having been blindsided by the decision of many teachers not to come to work.

“I am writing to inform you that due to a large number of absenteeism [sic] of teachers with limited notice this morning, particularly in the secondary department, we do not have enough teaching staff on board to ensure proper supervision of all students,” Hammoud wrote.

“Therefore, we have made the difficult decision to allow senior students to work from home if they so choose. For those who prefer to remain on campus, we have arranged for supervision in the common room.”

One teacher, who declined to be named so not to put their employment at risk, said many staff members called in sick on Monday because they were so shaken by recent events at the school, especially a fiery and at times physical protest by parents and students outside the school gates last Friday.

Victoria’s schools regulator is reviewing governance at East Preston Islamic College.

Some of the parents who stood outside the school gates on Monday were keen to keep up the fight, intermittently chanting “sack the board” and calling for Hammoud to come out and face them.

She declined.

EPIC’s troubles began in the first week of term, when the board withheld staff salaries in a power struggle over school finances between the new and former boards. The former board was ousted in a vote late last year.

Staff were finally paid after the Independent Education Union moved to pursue the new board at Fair Work Australia. However, each move the board has made since then has simply deepened the crisis.

In February, the board stood down its principal and acting principal, alleging serious misconduct without giving any details of their alleged wrongdoings. About 100 school staff have signed a petition pleading for their return.

The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA), which regulates non-government schools, has initiated a review of the school’s operations and governance. Its authorised officers visited EPIC this week.

EPIC has about 750 students between years prep and 12, and is overseen by a unique governance structure.

The school is owned by the Islamic Co-ordinating Council of Victoria, an alliance of 11 Islamic community groups from across greater Melbourne. When the council has a biennial vote for positions on its six-member board, the school’s board changes too.

Current chairman Edin Dzelalagic confirmed he had met this week with the VRQA, but otherwise declined to answer questions.

On Thursday, Dzelalagic and Hammoud released a joint statement to the school community, urging people to stick by the college, and insisting that recent troubles would not affect their commitment to “providing a superior Islamic education in an environment where the safety and welfare of our students is paramount”.

Dzelalagic and Hammoud also said they would arrange for members of the school community to meet with them and ask questions.

The VRQA commenced its cyclical review of the school last year, under the governance of the former board, and issued a rectification plan in November 2022, “which identified a number of areas in which the college has to improve”.

A former EPIC board member said the school had one of the most disadvantaged student cohorts of any non-government school in Melbourne, but had been making good progress and achieved much improved NAPLAN results in 2021 under the leadership of principals Neil Hasankolli and Masiha Rayan, who have both since been stood down.

“These are trauma-background kids, these are special-needs kids and there’s not many schools in Melbourne which have that big a density of such kids,” the former board member said.

“This is the tragic part … we had good attendance and enrolments, we had a good culture within the school. We started to taste success finally after a long time, and then when it gets gutted like that, you can then tell why people would be up in arms.”

By Wednesday, the front gates of the school were open again and onsite classes had resumed.

But some parents were wondering if their children still had a future at the school.

Ayan Ali, whose son is in primary school, said EPIC “looked more like a prison than a school” on Monday and Tuesday.

Ali joined protesting parents last week. She was so dismayed by the recent upheaval at the school, she sought to withdraw her son.

“There are more issues than not, and as a parent, I cannot have a proper conversation with my school teacher because I was told I’m not allowed to come in,” she said.

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