New toilet blocks, bike storage and landscaping are among the projects to receive a share of $22 million in funding under the annual public school infrastructure renewal program.
Evatt Primary School will get $400,000 for specialist arts and science, technology, engineering and maths learning areas which will make it easier for classes to do messy, hands-on activities.
The school will also get $400,000 to go towards toilet upgrades, including accessible toilets, and $100,000 for landscaping of a courtyard space outside the school library.
Principal Michael Hatswell said he was keen for the community to be able to use the new parts of the school campus outside of school hours.
"If we had a group of parents that wanted to come and do a pottery class of an afternoon or a weekend, that's a beautiful space to do that," he said.
"It's near our all access toilets. It's near the part of the school that some of the community organisations already access so it's a nice space for that."
Members of the Evatt Primary School student parliament Lincoln McKeahnie and Sophie Shaddock were excited about the improvements to their school.
"I'm really excited about how we're going to have a science lab area," Lincoln said.
"I'm looking forward to the new toilet. The ones up there terrible. The locks creek and the doors are broken," Sophie said.
The funding will go to 51 school projects in 37 schools across the four regions:
- 9 schools in the Belconnen region
- 8 schools in the North/Gungahlin region
- 11 schools in the South/Weston region
- 9 schools in the Tuggeranong region
The 50-year-old staff toilets at Farrer Primary School, Gilmore Primary School and Mount Rogers Primary School will get an upgrade as part of the program.
Lyneham High School and Campbell High School will get upgrades to their bicycle storage areas, while Telopea Park School will expand its primary office and sick bay.
However, Gungahlin College did not receive any funding for upgrades, despite calls from the P&C to urgently increase capacity by adding demountable classrooms and expanding into the Gungahlin CIT.
Education Minister Yvette Berry said she visited Gungahlin College on Tuesday morning to discuss the the problems.
"I can't preempt anything that's coming out in the budget, of course, but I think it was important for me to go out and listen to the students and to the parents and to the school principal about the pressures that they're experiencing and how we can work together to overcome them," Ms Berry said.
"So I guess that's kind of where we're at at the moment. We'll have announcements around what we do to meet the school's needs short term to medium term until we get to the point of building a new college."
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