Chair of Council

INCORPORATION… A NEW WAY FORWARD FOR OUR SCHOOL

Irecently announced that in 2021 Kinross Wolaroi School operations and assets would be moved into newly incorporated entities, with the property assets protected for the KWS community by a specific trust. While the community will see no change to the operational aspects of the school, it’s an important milestone in our history, and is the culmination of nearly five years of working alongside the leadership of the Uniting Church to determine the optimum structure to safeguard the school for current and future students, families and staff.

Ten years ago, I was asked to rewrite the school’s constitution. Given my legal background, this should have been a very simple task, but my first challenge was that I couldn’t even work out what type of legal entity we were. That was because the school was not a legal entity – instead it operated under Uniting Church rules, as part of the Church. In addition, all the property built up over its 130-year history was grouped with all other Church assets.

This was surprising to me, particularly given the scale and complexity of our operations and the current regulatory environment. While it was a structure that the school had operated under for so many years, the time had come to consider how best to operate for the future. In early 2016 Tony Cheney and I prepared a discussion paper which the Chairs of Pymble Ladies College, MLC School Burwood, Ravenswood School for Girls, Knox Grammar School and KWS jointly presented to the Church leadership to kick-start the conversation. Each school needed a legal structure which ensured limited liability, perpetual succession, ownership and control over its own assets, and the ability to enter into contracts and receive funding in its own right. We also did not want to continue to be exposed to potential liabilities elsewhere in the Church. The significance of this will be well understood by those who were part of our school community in the 1980s, and by those who followed the drama of the sale of All Saints College in Bathurst by the Anglican Church.

It became very clear early on that open communication was key. The Church leadership needed to get a far deeper understanding of what each school actually did, and the group of school Chairs needed to understand that the Church was there to provide support. General Secretary Reverend Jane Fry, an impressive, compassionate leader who was open to considering new ways forward, was instrumental in achieving the outcome.

We have ended up with a structure that works for the modern realities of independent schooling, while also reflecting the unique relationship the schools have with the Church. Critically, the typical corporate concept of “control” has been discounted – the foundation of the new structure is its alignment with the principle of shared responsibility for reconciliation, consensus and collaboration derived from the Basis of Union.

Out of this process our relationship with the Church and the other Uniting Church schools has never been stronger – we will be working in genuine partnership with the Church to advance our shared mission for the benefit of our community. This could only have happened through open and respectful communication – simply getting to know each other, talking about the concerns we each had, and workshopping a solution.

Simple really •

Left to right: Mrs Christine McIntosh, Rev Dr Rosalie Clarke and Dr Andrew Parry

Mrs Christine McIntosh Chair – KWS School Council

People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”

Martin Luther King Jnr