Todd Woodfine has a new appreciation for the term “brave face’’ after returning to duties as Kyabram P-12 College’s acting principal, only a few days after floodwaters poured into his Jess Dve home at Rochester.
Mr Woodfine returned to the college last Wednesday evening for the first time since making a mercy dash through rising floodwaters on the eastern side of Rochester to get back to his family at lunchtime last Thursday.
He attended a meeting of the school council prior to starting back at work on Thursday.
He recalled the daunting prospect of travelling from Kyabram to Rochester, through rising floodwaters, to get back to his wife and children.
“I am lucky I have a 4WD ute, because I was a bit nervous as the water came up to the windscreen,” Mr Woodfine said.
When we spoke last Thursday he was understandably struggling to put on his “game face’’, not only because his own life had been turned upside down by the floodwaters, but also with the decision to close the college.
Students had not been on site all week, with only Prep to Year 2 and Year 12 students at the school on Friday before the school was opened to the remaining students on Monday.
The extended impact of the floods on several Campaspe and Greater Shepparton communities has meant the college was forced to close because of lack of staff.
Mr Woodfine, who is living out of a caravan in a friend’s yard while his house “dries out’’, said he was doing his best to keep on task and find a positive income for the college community.
He is serving three masters, the 940 students and 150 staff of the Kyabram school community, his wife and three children, along with the community of Rochester, where he has established life-long friendships.
“It has been really tough. I have been torn between my home and family, my community and my school,” he said.
Jess Dve is on the southern edge of the Rochester township, just a couple of torpedo punts from the recreation reserve where Mr Woodfine has recently taken up the role as coach of the club’s Under-18 team.
In 2011 the water stopped before it reached his home, but this year his family was not as lucky.
Although, in typical Australian fashion, he was glowing in his praise for friends and “felt lucky’’ compared to some others in the Rochester township.
“I had heap of neighbours came through and we dried things up,” he said.
“We pressure-washed the whole house and cleaned up as much as we could.
“We hope to be back in on the weekend.”
Driving past mountains of mattresses and whitegoods on the eastern side of the town, he said his family was certainly not the worst affected.
Power was returned to his home at 5pm on Wednesday.
Sitting in his office at Kyabram on Thursday must have seemed a world away from the disaster that is Rochester, sun shining brightly through the window and the sound of lawn mowers from neighbouring houses rising in the background.
“Because Kyabram, as a town, hasn’t been affected it is difficult for people here to probably understand the school being closed,” he said.
“But we have had a large number of students and staff who have been, or will be, affected by the flood.”
Several members of Kyabram’s staff have also been volunteers in the clean-up effort at Rochester and sandbagging work conducted for Moooropna, Shepparton and Echuca.
Mr Woodfine said the decision to close the school came on the advice of department officials, based on safety concerns for students.
He also said he completely understood his staff making their family and property a priority.
He has been working closely with principal from the district and his own college leadership team to share the responsibilities.
“I haven’t been in the right head space to tackle all the school issues and I have been relying on other leaders,” he said.
“I have been communicating with Jay Sutton at St Augs (St Augustine’s College) to get the schools aligned.”
Mr Woodfine said his staff were not only from Kyabram, but also Shepparton, Echuca, Tatura, Mooroopna, Rochester and most points in between.
“We have staff in Echuca who are sandbagging as we speak, not really knowing what to expect,“ he said.
Mr Woodfine said the college would consider a staggered approach to students return.
“I hope the school community understands just how far reaching these floods have been, even for those in the town that haven’t been physically affected,” he said.
He understands the mixed feedback from the school community to the college closure and said the aim was to get students back as soon as possible.
A teacher at Kyabram for the past four years, he has also been attempting to support the Rochester secondary community — where he was a teacher for 16 years.
With his own Year 10 son, Toby, Year 8 daughter Amelia and Heidi, who is in Year 3 at St Joseph’s he and wife Nina are more than aware of the impact closing schools has on home lives.
Mr Woodfine said prioritising was extremely difficult, if not impossible, but the plight of Year 12 students weighed heavily on his mind.
Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has allocated a support person to each school in the flood region, because every school has a different situation.
“They will support students during the exam period.
“Kyabram students will fall under the banner of those affected by the floods. How they are assessed is still to be determined, but it will include General Assessment Test (GAT) results and their grades during the year,” he said.
The mentally draining experience for the acting principal came to a head on Wednesday - five days after he did his mercy dash from Kyabram to Rochester in response to the impending flood disaster.
"Wednesday was the worst day. I have had our chaplain Liz Spicer on the phone a couple of times and had lots of staff support.
“I even have a lady baking me two cakes to take home with me tonight,” he said.