Newcastle East Public School asked to confirm policy on travel to Sydney during COVID

Mum of three Meaghan McGregor - whose eldest child has an autoimmune disease - said several parents were concerned the school's "COVID-safe bubble" was not as secure as it could be.

She withdrew her children for four days last month and another parent sent their child back this week after withdrawing him on July 24.

"We wanted to be able to establish the risk presented by someone who was then going to be in contact with everybody at the school," she said.

"I've got to make a risk assessment and I thought it was not unreasonable to say 'Hang on a sec, I can't take that risk'."

Ms McGregor said it was "not acceptable" the school still hadn't provided parents with a clear answer more than a month after her July 22 email asking it to confirm how it was managing changing advice about visiting Sydney.

She acknowledged the risk would have since decreased, "but we're not out of the woods yet".

Ms McGregor also noted in her email her concern about the possible risk in visiting the new front office and said she'd told her children not to visit it.

She told the Herald parents had been worried there was no sanitiser or signage about COVID precautions in the new office until July 31, but people including painters, couriers and furniture removalists had visited in the week before and classes had been taken through it on tours.

"At Hamilton South you can't even go into their office, there's a sign at the front of the school 'You must call' and they come out to you. All other schools are taking more initiative locally.

"We weren't asking anything that wasn't being asked of the rest of the community and every business was responding."

The school has started issuing 'external visitors to school site' forms.

Ms McGregor wrote to the school and Department of Education again on July 27, asking if principal Mick McCann had travelled by train the previous weekend to Sydney, where she said his family lives. She didn't send her children to school for the next four days.

"If he'd been travelling privately to Sydney that's a different matter, but the threat was being in an enclosed space and potentially going into what was deemed to be largely a hotpot. Even the hospital here was screening, asking 'Have you been to Sydney?'" she said.

Mr McCann had previously told her in a May 8 email he was "aware that my family arrangements may present a concern to you, but I am taking all precautions I can to maintain my health and the health of the people I work with each day".

Ms McGregor said in her July 27 email she believed "we have a right to ask for transparency on this issue as we did last week but with no response".

"Likewise, there does appear to be a failure to recognise the number of people who come onto school grounds or an acknowledgment if other staff may also be travelling beyond the city, despite public health requests not to."

She wrote again on July 28 and Newcastle Principal Network director of educational leadership Jennifer Moody replied.

"The school will not communicate or answer any questions directly related to any member of staff, student or family circumstances out of respect for privacy," Ms Moody said.

"We all take the risks of the virus spreading very seriously and take steps to protect ourselves, our families and those with whom we come in contact."

The department did not respond to request for comment by deadline.

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