Education boss to parents: Either share your principal, or pay $5000 extra a year

More than a dozen Catholic primary schools in Sydney’s north shore and northern beaches will share their principal with another school in a move designed to keep fees low amid a sharp reduction in funding.

The Diocese of Broken Bay wrote to parents this week detailing how numerous principals would work across two schools under a leadership model which would boost collaboration with leaders to maintain a “meaningful presence” in each school.

But the union representing Catholic school teachers has trashed the move, saying it effectively means each school will have a “part-time” leader while questions around staffing remain unanswered.

Parents at St Martin’s in Davidson were among the schools told on Tuesday about the principal-sharing proposal, informed that their school leader Cathy Gualtieri would also start working across Our Lady of Good Counsel in Forestville from next month. St Martin’s had 136 students last year while Our Lady of Good Counsel had 282.

“In this shared leadership role, Cathy will maintain a meaningful presence across both school communities, working closely with students, staff and families at each site,” Diocese of Broken Bay director of schools Danny Casey said in the letter.

He assured parents that sharing the principal would benefit from strong on-site leadership teams while each school would retain its “unique identity”.

Speaking to this masthead, Casey said 14 smaller primary schools are expected to share a principal ranging from Manly to Avalon as well as schools further north to Berowra.

“We’ve got to make sure the investment is in the students and not in unnecessary, perhaps, areas of leadership,” he said.

New rules around school funding introduced five years ago began considering parents’ taxable income and their capacity to contribute to school fees. Casey said as a result, the diocese saw a $90 million reduction in funding every year, particularly in Sydney’s north, a small fraction of which has been partially offset by the government’s choice and affordability funding.

Casey said the funding situation made the viability of smaller schools “very difficult to maintain”.

He said the $90 million reduction in funding was equivalent to about $5000 per student.

“I think the question for parents [is]: would you like to pay $5000 more, or would you like to go with an arrangement that’s proven to be very successful in other settings?”

He said in most cases it aligned one principal with each parish’s two schools, and mirrored arrangements in other dioceses which had worked successfully.

“We have an unshakable belief that the very best outcomes for learning occur with a teacher in the classroom, not in the boardroom.”

He said parents could voice concerns and vowed that staff would “ring each person individually” to make sure we understand exactly what their concern is and make sure it was fully addressed.

President of Parents and Friends Association at St John’s The Apostle in Narraweena, Chantelle Lewis, said they were never warned they faced losing a full-time principal.

“Parents deserve transparency. We pay school fees that increase each year, we are key stakeholders in our children’s education, and we expect to be treated as such,” she said.

She said there was a single consultation at her school in October 2025 but a shared leadership model was never presented or discussed.

“The understanding is that staff were not consulted either, despite several staff development days this year. If this is a significant new model being rolled out across schools, you would expect meaningful engagement with those most affected the students, parents and teachers.”

She said significant restructures “don’t happen overnight” and parents now wanted to hear from Catholic schools leadership about why this had not happened.

“Our parent community have expressed a total lack of confidence about future dealings with Catholic Schools Broken Bay,” she said.

Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT branch secretary Carol Matthews issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon, saying the union “cannot see how this restructuring will benefit anyone”.

Matthews said the employer had not consulted the union about the impacts of the shared principal proposal when it made this decision.

“For example, we do not know whether staffing at affected schools will be increased to compensate for the loss of a full-time principal and how principals will perform their role across two schools,” she said.

It comes after the Diocese of Broken Bay, which stretches from the north shore to the Central Coast, announced changes to 13 schools, including closing St Cecilia’s primary school at Balgowlah and merging it with St Kieran’s at Manly Vale last year.

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