Welcome to the August edition of the CSPV newsletter. This term began with the welcoming of Julie Di Noto as Administrative Officer and newest member of the CSPV team. Julie has a broad range of experience in Catholic education as an educator and family-school partnerships cluster leader with Catholic schools in Melbourne. Julie will work closely with our Executive Officer, Rachel Saliba and CSPV council members as we work on developing a strategic plan to guide the work of the council over the next 5 years.

The most immediate issue CSPV have been monitoring is the ongoing discussion related to Non-Government School Funding. In July the Australian Government's National School Resourcing Board (NSRB) released the report on its Review of the Socio-Economic Status (SES) Score Methodology. This report found that the current SES formulae used to determine Commonwealth funding for non-government schools were flawed in a manner that penalises Catholic school systems and limits their ability to distribute funding based on need. The NSRB report confirmed the validity of claims made over the past 15 months by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria about the unfairness of the current SES scoring formulae.

Currently the Catholic education sector is one of the parties involved in discussion with the government about the recommendations of the NSRB report. CSPV will endeavour to keep parents up to date with the ongoing negotiations. You can also read an update in this newsletter.

CSPV will welcome a new member from Ballarat, Mr Rod Lewis at our next council meeting in September. CSPV continue to seek new members for our council to represent the parent perspective of children enrolled in Catholic schools, specifically in the diocese of Sale.

Until next time,

Morgan Murphy
Chair, CSPV