ULLADULLA High School students are enjoying world class education, according to several speakers on Tuesday as the school’s $27.5 million redevelopment was officially opened.

And several speakers praised the community for making sure the redevelopment happened.

“What’s magnificent is this community,” said school principal Denise Lofts.

She said there was a vision 10 years ago to create a world-class school, and parents and others in the school community joined together to make sure changes happened.

“This committed group of community people wrote a new story for this school,” Ms Lofts said.

However it was not easy, according to State Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock.

She started teaching at the school in 1976 when there were just 230 students and and area of bush covered part of the school grounds.

However the school population gradually grew to the current level of more than 1100, reaching the stage when there were 32 demountable classrooms on the top school oval, and plans to start putting some in the bottom oval.

That was until the sewerage system exploded because it was not built to cope with such a large number of students, and raw sewage was flowing over an oval.

“That was the last straw,” Mrs Hancock recalled, saying the incident led to a major campaign to have the school upgraded including petitions, rallies outside Parliament House and a long community fight to secure the needed upgrades.

“Finally, the passion of this community was heard in Macquarie Street.”

Mrs Hancock said the upgraded school was “wonderful”, a sentiment supported by Education Minister Adrian Piccoli who acknowledged the decision by the former ALP state government to commit to a major upgrade for the school.

Both the state and federal governments contributed to upgrading the school, and Mr Piccoli said the cost “could just about get a brand new school on a greenfield site”.

He said the $27.5 million was “a lot of money to spend,” but added he believed it was money well spent given the scope of the work.

“It is quite an amazing development,” he said.

“However, first class facilities are only part of the equation.

“Add to that parents who are engaged in the learning of their children, as you do here in Ulladulla, and when you have a world-class teaching profession like we have here in NSW, that is when the magic happens in education,” Mr Piccoli said.