General News
3 July, 2024
Joint head for trinity of colleges
Horsham Holy Trinity Lutheran College head Jason Przibilla will lead a newly formed Wimmera Lutheran College from the start of 2025.
The new Wimmera college will see Horsham's Lutheran College, Dimboola's St Peter's Lutheran College and Nhill Lutheran School merge into one operation while retaining all three sites.
All are co-educational Christian schools initiated by Lutheran congregations. Horsham's college was established in 1979 to provide a quality Christian education to children in Horsham and surrounding districts. Many fundraising events helped towards paying for the school.
Nhill and Dimboola schools have classes from foundation to Year 6 with buses running daily to take secondary students from Nhill and Horsham.
When the merger was announced in March, Horsham College had 586 students and about 100 staff, Dimboola's St Peter's school had 20 students and six staff and Nhill's had 53 students and 10 staff. A newly-appointed business manager, Dennis Chew, already manages all three schools.
Mr Przibilla, executive principal, said all three schools would be retained under the new structure.
"And we are intent on retaining and protecting what is unique to each school," he said. "We need to keep what is special to each."
He said Wimmera Lutheran College Committee had been created to oversee the transition.
The committee, which meets fortnightly, includes current principals and board members, business manager Mr Chew and a representative from Lutheran Education Victoria, NSW, Tasmania and ACT.
The move also means merging three boards to one, and searching for people with a range of skills to fill board positions.
Issues such as uniforms, a joint logo, staff responsibilities between the three campuses, choice of school camps and outings were yet to be determined, as well as a common website.
"We'll be looking at what has to change now and what can be changed over a period of time," Mr Przibilla said.
"We see this as a way to strengthen our school. And it gives us the potential to share staff."
Other plans for 2025 include new appointments for all three schools, including a director of curriculum and pedagogy.
Mr Przibilla said reaction to the merger had been mostly positive, and the school community had been kept well-informed.
Damon Prenzler is now head of the Nhill school and Millie Dent of the Dimboola school.