Pilbara rallies against cuts

Four Pilbara primary schools were forced to close their doors on Thursday morning as teachers and support staff walked off the job to protest State Government cuts to school budgets and teaching positions.

Baynton West, Karratha, Tambrey and Wickham primary schools were closed for half a day to allow teachers and parents to attend a union rally at Millars Well Oval in Karratha.

More than 140 teachers and support staff were joined by parents, students and community members dressed in the State School Teachers' Union's signature blue.

Holding placards, protesters recited chants including "Colin, Colin, slash and burn, doesn't care if your kids don't learn".

The Karratha rally was just one of many across the State, with 200 protesters gathering at Port Hedland, and 300 in Geraldton.

A rally was also held in Wickham for union members who couldn't travel to Karratha.

Union members discussed taking industrial action over changes to the Full Time Equivalent formula used to allocate teachers.

The number of FTE teaching positions will remain the same in 2014, regardless of increases in student numbers.

There will be a reduction in education assistants, with a cut to 350 FTE positions across the State.

Rally co-ordinator Helen Osborne said staffing cuts were occurring as early as this Friday.

"As of Friday, September 27, the regional office that supports all the schools in our area are losing two staff members," she said.

A Department of Education spokesman said the positions were in the clerical and finance areas, and were relinquished as part of a Statewide reduction in some central and regional office positions designed to ensure students received the best value from the State's education budget.

Protesters were also angry about changes to school funding and the introduction of a long service leave levy.

For the first time, schools will be required to make a payment of $600 for every staff member into a long-term staff levy out of the school budget.

Rally co-ordinator Helen Osborne said the cuts were the biggest threat to education she had seen in her 40 years of teaching.

"I think it's the first time I can say in all my years of teaching that I've seen a threat like this to the children that we teach," she said.

"It's the children we're concerned about … it's got nothing to do with individual teachers or our housing, or our pay." She said smaller school budgets would affect Pilbara schools.

"We're further away from the centres in Perth, so if we want to have professional development for teachers, schools have got additional costs of flying people up here and accommodation," she said.

"So I can see that it could well lead to less professional development for workers in the school."

Karratha Primary School principal Mark Smyth said his school was set to lose about $245,000.

Education Minister Peter Collier said the budget cuts were a matter of "tightening schools' belts", but that more would be spent on education.

"We are increasing spending on education, the budget is up $300 million this financial year," he said.

Mr Collier condemned the stop work meetings and said the Government would not be reversing the reforms.

Petitions were signed in Karratha and Wickham and will be presented to Parliament.