"They operate in very professional ways; they don't just pull up stumps," he said. The historic Catholic girls’ school told parents and teachers on Monday that it plans to shut its doors at the end of the 2020 school year, blaming falling enrolments. The decision comes despite receiving a $1 million grant from the Victorian government in 2017-18, to help pay for a $2 million refurbishment of school buildings. A consultant confirmed the school had commenced discussions about the school’s future with “interested parties” in recent times, adding that rumblings about the school’s possible closure began six years ago. “Consultation has been happening over the years going back to 2013 about the school’s future,” PCW consultant Michael Elphick said.

He said the final decision to close the school was made by the Presentation Sisters of Victoria eight weeks ago. “We had a meeting where the sisters took me through their reasoning, why they thought this was a necessity,” Mr Elphick said. He said the school has the budget to complete the publicly funded renovation works and turn older buildings to "state of the art" classrooms, but said the debt accrued by falling enrolment numbers had become unsustainable. The school had made an effort to boost enrolment numbers over the years, Mr Elphick said, including through social media campaigns and a marketing program, but a "line in the sand" was drawn when year seven enrolment numbers for 2020 came through. "There are 47 kids in year seven for next year and that figure is pretty rubbery. We would have been looking at redundancies at these numbers," he said.

"When that number came in so low we didn’t have a choice." He said these new parents would be reimbursed for any deposits they have put down or money spent on uniforms. School principal Filina Virgato broke the news to parents on Monday afternoon, acknowledging the decision would "come as heartbreaking news". Enrolments at PCW dropped from 655 in 2008 to 593 in 2013, and down again to 466 in 2018. The number of teaching staff also took a significant hit, with MySchools data showing the school lost 14 teaching staff between 2017 and 2018. Non-teaching staff also drastically declined, from 35 in 2017 to just 25 a year later.

Major stakeholders including the archbishop, Catholic Education, Edmund Rice Education Australia and brother school Christian Brothers' College were informed of the decision before parents and students were told on Monday. Parents and students have expressed sorrow at the looming closure, and anger at a lack of consultations, but Mr Elphick defended the timing of the announcement. "Parents like to have a lot of information about a lot of things. Sometimes it’s appropriate to share, other times it’s not," he said. Parents Janet Mitchell, left, and Sam Baker react with sadness to news of the school's coming closure. Credit:Eddie Jim Parents have also speculated that the school’s owners could be looking to sell the school site, which sits on prime real estate in inner-city Windsor.

Clinton Baxter, Victorian director of Savills, a real estate agency, said he believed the prime site would be worth at least $40 million. The school sits within a general residential zone, meaning it could potentially be redeveloped for future housing, or even to a private school that seeks a new campus, Mr Baxter said. Loading “If it was public open space the value of the land would be much lower, but a general residential zone gives a lot of flexibility in potential future uses, without the owner having to go through a rezoning process,” he said. Savills recently managed the sale of the ABC's former studio site in nearby Elsternwick for more than $40 million.

Parents speaking to The Age this morning were furious at the lack of consultation and are set to host a meeting later tonight. Consultant Mr Elphick will not attend the meeting. Mr Elphick said the school was in debt, but would not disclose its size and said if it continued on the same route, the school would be "real dire circumstances." "The last thing we want to be is a Clive Palmer; we can meet all of our debts now," Mr Elphick said. CBC principal Mr Bain-King said Edmund Rice Education Australia "have made it very clear that they support us", and that his school has not had the same issues as PCW. "Our enrolments are basically pretty stable," he said. "We'll have a small reduction next year, they do go up and down a bit.