Children's safety is 'paramount'

The Canberra Times yesterday revealed a student had been kept out of the education system for more than four months after stabbing another child with a chisel at Melba Copland Secondary School in February.

The boy's mother, who cannot be identified, believes her son's two terms out of school has caused him significant harm, and may cause him to drop out of the education system completely.

But both the Australian Education Union and the ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations believe the Education Directorate should take as much time as is necessary to ensure others were safe before placing at-risk children back into school.

AEU ACT branch acting secretary Glenn Fowler said there was nothing more important than the safety of staff and students.

But he said the government needed to do more to ensure at-risk children were provided with alternative education services until they could be put back in school.

''Our public schools proudly take all comers, and we don't shy away from that responsibility,'' Mr Fowler said.

''But there has to be better resources to cater for kids with complex needs, very high levels of need.

''There needs to be a suite of programs that are alternative to the mainstream that can be accessible to kids who, for one reason or another, can't be in a mainstream setting.'' ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations vice president Jane Tullis said the case at Melba Copland needed very ''careful consideration'' to ensure other students and staff were kept safe.

Mrs Tullis, who is also the president of the Melba Copland P&C, said the student should only be allowed back into the school system if the safety of other kids was at an ''acceptable level of risk''.

''Obviously we don't put our children in cotton wool completely,'' Mrs Tullis said.

''But, if you were to interview people who had children, and ask them 'What is the acceptable risk level for your child to be happy to take a student back?' '' she said.

''Well, parents then suddenly think 'Oh well, hang on, I'll have to think about that'.''

She said Melba Copland had offered a range of support services to the family and student, and that everything was being done behind the scenes to help the boy.

Mrs Tullis also stated her strong support for the government's review of potentially dangerous sharp objects stored across Canberra's schools.

That review was designed to make sure there were no gaps in the procedures for keeping sharp objects in classrooms and at schools.

''We certainly consider our schools safe anyway,'' Mrs Tullis said.

''[The Melba Copland incident] was a very rare and flashpoint type of event, so in general parents are very happy with the safety at schools.''

Mr Fowler said there was statistically ''no safer place'' for children to be than in ACT's schools.