Inner-Sydney parents, teachers and community members have put their heads together to solve the city's looming school shortage and have sent a resounding call to the government.
They want a new high school and they want it now, the feedback from extensive community consultation indicates.
Less unanimous, however, is where they want it and what they want it to look like.
Popular ideas include repurposing sites such as the Cleveland Street Intensive English High School and incorporating a school within the city's big development sites at Barangaroo and Green Square.
From the views of more than 600 people came some creative yet unlikely suggestions, such as using the Domain Car Park, The National Art School and Victoria Barracks, as well as some truly zany ideas such as a floating school and classrooms in state Parliament.
The extensive process, conducted by external consultants for the NSW Education Department, also uncovered overwhelming support for a shake-up to selective schooling, either by restructuring enrolments in existing schools or abolishing the selective schools altogether.
Independent MP for Sydney Alex Greenwich says it is now time for the state government to listen to the community voices and to act.
The ideas to be taken seriously, he said, are those that use existing education infrastructure and those that advocate new schools in upcoming developments.
"There is so much development happening in the inner-city area, from Barangaroo to Pyrmont and the Central to Eveleigh development zone, and there are opportunities there for the government to partner with people who are developing those sites to ensure there is education infrastructure," he said.
The department sought the community's input to shape its short- and long-term strategies for inner-city education, with the more than 2500 additional high school students expected over the next 12 years.
Projections indicate there will be no space left in the inner-city high schools by 2018. There are no comprehensive high schools in the CBD and the closest, at Glebe, Balmain and Alexandria Park, are either full or almost.
Enrolments at the city's primary schools have swelled in recent years, more than tripling since 2008 at Bourke Street Public School and doubling at Darlinghurst Public School.
The most popular short-term solutions advocated by the community included reforming or removing the selective high school system, as well as enforcing boundaries against out-of-area students and refurbishing existing facilities to create more classroom space.
Many local principals, teachers, parents and community members supported the ideas of introducing a local stream at Sydney Boys and Sydney Girls selective schools, giving all schools selective streams or phasing out selective schools entirely.
Skye Molyneux, from Community for Local Options for Secondary Education, said the consultation had "opened up a can of worms" in terms of the city's selective schools.
"It's a great by-product of the discussion because in trying to understand why there isn't capacity the most obvious thing that jumps up is the fact that we do actually have high schools here but they're highly selective and completely inaccessible to the garden-variety student," she said.
Over the five- to 10-year period, all interest groups agreed a new school was needed, with most willing to accept a vertical school and many pushing to have the Cleveland Street Intensive English High School site used for local students.
Four current students of that school wrote letters arguing against that idea.
The Department of Education will consider the feedback and make recommendations to the government by the end of the year.
