‘Tragic waste of time’: Push for school zone overhaul to reflect travel distance

Victoria could create a fairer public school zoning system within a week if it followed the lead of other states and used already available technology to select schools based on travel times rather than the direction ‘as the crow flies’.

Geographic information system experts say the current metropolitan zoning system leads to a “tragic waste of time” because the methodology, which selects the closest school in a straight line from each house, often fails to consider commute times and available public transport options.

Werribee’s Simon O’Keefe designed a zoning system based on shortest travel distance in 2018. The prototype won a runner-up prize at GovHack, an annual open government data competition, but the state has never contacted him, despite what he said was proof that zoning inequities were a “solvable problem”.

O’Keefe’s design centred on primary schools in the Wyndham area but he said it could easily be scaled up to cover all state schools in a week.

“There are entire neighbourhoods that are forced to travel ridiculously long distances,” he said. “So you just look at the number of households, multiplied by the hours a day that they’re spending in traffic and multiply that across the whole state. I just think it’s a tragic waste of time.”

Victoria’s metropolitan school zones are based on the nearest school in a straight line from a student’s permanent address. The government says non-standard zones can be created to align with geographical barriers such as rivers and freeways, but the “straight line” method still often produces absurd results.

The Age has spoken to several families left without public transport options, with long commutes around creeks and congested roads, or forced to drive past their closest school to get to their zoned campus.

O’Keefe’s design used “mesh blocks” – groups of about 60 houses created by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – to work out the shortest travel distances for each neighbourhood. He said technology had advanced since to consider individual properties, modes of transport and travel times.

Interestingly, the Education Department’s regional zonings already allocate the nearest school by the shortest practical route by road.

“So it looks like they’ve got some way of doing it,” O’Keefe said. “They’re just not applying it for the areas that need it the most.”

School zones are a source of stress for many families, inflating property prices around desirable schools and leaving those unhappy with their zoned school sometimes turned down for enrolment at their preferred campus.

There are also questions about their relevance, with The Age revealing 41 per cent of Victoria’s public students attended a school outside their allocated zone last year.

Caroline Baird is all too familiar with the system’s potentially farcical outcomes.

Baird’s two children were moved from the Bentleigh Secondary College zone into South Oakleigh’s when boundaries were shifted in 2022 for one of Melbourne’s most sought-after state secondary schools, McKinnon Secondary College. McKinnon is still geographically their closest school; South Oakleigh is their third.

When Baird complained about her 12-year-old daughter needing to catch two buses to make it to South Oakleigh, as opposed to a 900-metre walk to McKinnon, the department advised she could take a direct bus at 6.15am.

McKinnon does not accept out-of-zone enrolments but she was ultimately given a place at Bentleigh Secondary, a 12-minute bike ride away. While Baird is relieved, she’s angry at the department’s response.

“I don’t find them fit for purpose,” she said. “The standard response for two-and-a-half years is we know you’re disappointed. That’s not a disappointment. It’s about my children’s education and how they are going to get safely from school every day without exhausting their energy by 9am.”

South Australia stopped using the straight-line zoning method in 2018.

Their Education Department spokesperson said the method was discontinued “due to its limitations in accounting for physical obstacles such as rivers, rail lines and other impediments that significantly affect accessibility to school sites”.

The current system calculates the shortest practical route by road and available public transport. Queensland also allocates zones by the shortest, most direct route by road.

Spatial technology specialist Simon Jackson designed his own zoning prototype inspired by O’Keefe’s work.

His model allowed for modes of transport to be considered to determine a student’s quickest commute. Jackson, whose employer Esri Australia works across all levels of government, said Victoria should consider incorporating travel times and modes into its zoning system.

“Traffic and the transport system are crucial considerations for many when it comes to the liveability of where we reside and work,” he said.

Dr Joe Hurley, from RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research, said he was comfortable with Victoria’s “straight line” method for school catchments, as models based on network distance would be more contestable.

He said it was more important to make sure the urban planning allowed for all children to ride or walk to school.

A Victorian Education Department spokesperson said school zones were used by every Australian state and territory and were important for schools to be able to manage their enrolments “in the fairest way possible”.

They said students could enrol at a school outside their zone if it had sufficient capacity.

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