WARIALDA Public School, Warialda High School and Tingha Public School teachers were joined by colleagues from Sutherland, Picton, Eastern Suburbs, Inner City and the North Coast when they took stopwork action on Wednesday.

The Warialda Schools (both 4 point non-incentive schools) and Tingha Public School (a 6 point incentive school) joined the tandem action organised by the NSW Teachers Federation in order to highlight the effects of proposed staffing changes in rural and remote areas of the state.

“We were delighted by the support we received from across the state,” stated Warialda High School Federation Representative Len Fleming.

“ We had only expected schools in the Sutherland area to join with us but we were joined by over 20 schools from four different education regions.

“A great show of support.

“The teachers at Warialda and Tingha realise that the dismantling of the state wide staffing transfer system will place their students at even greater risk of missing out on having appropriately trained and qualified teachers and this is not acceptable to them.”

Newly elected Warialda Public School Federation Representative Amber Lucas, provided members with a copy of a letter from former Warialda Assistant Principal, Nicole Bartlett who was at the school from 2002 to 2008 who had utilised the Expression of Interest (E.O.I) process provided in the old agreement to gain a transfer to the North Coast Region as a direct response to the staffing changes.

Schools that took action in support of Warialda and Tingha included: Double Bay PS, Forest Lodge PS, Edgeware SSP, Kegworth PS, Dulwich Visual Arts and Design HS, Tempe PS, Taveners Hill Infants, Birchgrove PS, Warialda HS, Warialda PS, Picton HS, Kirrawee HS, Kirrawee PS, Kareela PS, Caringbah HS, Woronora PS, Cook School, Bates Drive School and Iluka PS.