Lilly Binion badly wants to return to school, but instead of running around in the playground she spends her days at home being cared for by a neighbour as she does schoolwork on downloaded work sheets.
At night, when her mother Jenny returns from her job as a nurse, the pair continue their forced homeschooling.
Mrs Binion says she feels she has no choice but to homeschool Lilly after Department of Education and Training representatives said they would not supply a teacher to Devenish Primary School, 230 kilometres north of Melbourne, due to low student numbers.
Students across the state have been back at school for almost two weeks, but for 11-year-old Lilly who should be entering grade 4, the school day looks very different.
"We're going into the third week of no school for my daughter and it's not good enough. They need to do something," Mrs Binion said.
Every morning of the term so far Lilly has gotten up and dressed for school, but so far she has been left waiting at the gate with no teacher in sight.
The small regional community where she lives was once a thriving town, but in recent years the town's population has fallen to just 200 residents.
Mrs Binion is using online resources to provide some sort of education so that her daughter doesn't fall further behind.
"I've downloaded some grade 4 school work and my neighbour is teaching her for me while I'm at work and then we do some more at night when I get home," she said.
"I'm not a teacher, I'm a nurse. I can fix wounds and sore knees but I'm not a teacher," she said.
While at-home learning was the norm during the pandemic, Mrs Binion does not have the same support or resources and is not sure how sustainable it is in the long-term.
Attempts to enrol ignored
It's understood that parents of prospective students wanting to attend the school have attempted to submit their enrolment forms on several occasions.
"We weren't able to submit summer application forms because there was no access to the school through the Christmas holidays," parent Chris Gregory said.
He said that typically, enrolment forms were handed to the school's principal but in this case that has not been possible while the school remained unstaffed.
On Wednesday, parents made the 260-kilometre round trip to the department office in Wodonga to hand over their enrolment paperwork to officials.
When they arrived, they were met with disappointment.
The doors were locked and no-one was there to accept the forms despite an employee having informed them by the phone that the office was open that day.
"It's just not good enough. We feel like we don't matter and it's frustrating," Mrs Binion said.
"Policies on their website, [say] they must not refuse enrolments if [the student is] within their zone
"They have a duty of care to my daughter and they need to accept the enrolments of the other four girls as well."
Lack of communication
In a statement, the state government said "the department is discussing enrolment options with interested parents".
Mr Gregory said that wasn't entirely true.
While Mrs Binion had received a call from a government official to arrange a meeting on Friday, he said the department had neither contacted him nor other prospective parents, and that there had been no communication about enrolment options despite many attempts to find out more.
He said last night's invitation was extended only to Mrs Binion and himself, but not to the parents of the other children wanting to attend the school.
"I am glad but I have my concerns that it's simply just to talk us down," Mr Gregory said.
"But hopefully there is some positive news in there."
He said they will try to submit the enrolment forms again then and demand a teacher, but he suspects neither will happen despite the school not being officially closed.
"Clearly we've seen that there is a departmental push to close little country schools and small communities have to be careful of that," Mr Gregory said.
Mrs Binion has also sought legal advice.
"[My daughter] is really miserable. She just wants to go to school," she said.
"They're failing these kids. It's not right."
