Monday was the first time since the February floods that Trinity Catholic College had all year levels and staff back together at Southern Cross University.

Following the devastating floods, Trinity staff and students were learning from home once again, ala COVID, before face to face learning was set up at Southern Cross University (SCU) at the end of March for Year 11 and 12 students (just before flood 2). Temporary class rooms were then quickly built at Woodlawn High School so Year 11 and 12 students could get back to regular learning while Years 7 to 10 restarted their school life at SCU.

Principal Jesse Smith said it was a great opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge 150 years of Marist education and to acknowledge the tenure of former Principal Brother John while at the same time Mr Smith was appointed the first layprincipal of Trinity.

"It was wonderful to have that acknowledged with the presence of Bishop Greg (Homeming) and the Presentation Sisters Community of Lismore, the Marist Brothers and the executives of the Catholics School's Office who were my leadership team when I was a student. It was great to have everyone part of the celebration on Champagnat day (the founder of the Marist Brothers)."

(Brother John and Bishop Homeming)

Brother John was the principal of Trinity from 2013 until the start of 2022 and is the last Marist Brother to have led a secondary school across the country, "This is a special feat," Jesse added.

When asked if Brother John was emotional during the celebration, Jesse replied "Absolutely, anyone who has signed up to dedicate your life to working with young people has mixed emotions. There were emotions for what has transpired and also excitement for what is to come."

Brother John has moved into the significant role of Director of Master Planning which means he is heading the rebuild of Trinity Catholic College.

"He has really important work to continue to do and is enjoying that but certainly to finish, not just his principalship here but the principalship he had at Red Bend in Forbes takes him to a total of 17 years as a principal which is a really significant period of time."

"Brother John has always been inspired by the students at Trinity and the dedication and care of staff and the support of parents."

"He spoke about seeing the footage of the flood event in February from where he was in Melbourne and he well and truly understood the enormity of it, which makes his new role really significant in terms of helping us as a community to come back from that."

"Trinity has been around for a very long period of time and its part of the overall fabric of this entire area. It's not just a catholic school, there's many many networks throughout the community that attach themselves to our school. He was very proud of being able to play a part in leading that during his time as Principal. Now, he'll be leading in a different way in years to come."

As for the progress of Trinity Catholic College since the flood?

"We are we were involved in a meeting yesterday and there were no real significant updates beyond what is happening to remove items and continue to deal with the cleanup and clearout of the site. We are hoping that midyear we will have an actual figure around what the insurance claim will look like and then the Master Planning Committee and the College Council can come out with a clearer timeframe. We're hoping that by late July, early August we have some sort of understanding as to where that's up to. That's when we can come out and provide some certainty about what our future looks like."

'There is a really significant amount of material to be removed, but on top of that you've got to remove walls that have been flood-affected and damaged and then, like many places to out Lismore, you've also got to deal with the ongoing mould outbreak, which is moving through parts of buildings that were not actually impacted by water, but mould has certainly come to take take up as it's place."

"There is still an enormous amount of work to be done on that and then in the background you've got all the contractors going through preparing, what's referred to as, the scope of works, which is going to give us the number as to what the overall damage bill is and that will then inform us of the next step of the process."

"It will take time and we're still waiting on some of those big ticket items to come to the table before the decision can be made. We would love nothing more than to be able to say to everyone this is what will be happening but unfortunately we just don't have all the facts right now."