Tamworth's Parry School has seen an alarming increase in student drug and mental health problems and has no way to help solve them with a lack of services.
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That's the submission deputy principal Martin Courtney has given to an independent inquiry into the value of teaching, called the 'Gallop Inquiry'.
Speaking to the panel members in Sydney on Wednesday in a live-streamed exchange, Mr Courtney said the mental health and drug services available to young people were not enough.
Before the submission was closed to the public for confidentiality reasons, Mr Martin - who has worked at Parry for five years - outlined the school's concern with the rise in students presenting with increasingly worsening drug problems.
The inquiry heard that in Tamworth there had been an increase in drug use, mostly blamed on easy access.
The chances of us able to get a young person into drug rehabilitation is limited by the fact don't have the facilities around us to support that.
- Martin Courtney
The age of those trialing drugs was also getting younger, Mr Martin said, and they were seeing more cases of inter-generational drug use, coupled with the fact Tamworth has no juvenile detox clinics.
"In Tamworth, we don't have a detox centre that can take juveniles; we don't have a drug rehab centre that can take juveniles," he told the panel.
"Any drug centres that do take juveniles require detox before they can go into rehabilitation, but to get our young people to detox away from home and their family support networks is quite difficult.
"The chances of us able to get a young person into drug rehabilitation is limited by the fact don't have the facilities around us to support that."
Mr Martin said they were also battling mental health issues after the reduction in funding for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), a Hunter New England Health service.
They now only have access to a qualified psychologist over two days from CAHMS, and that position covers the entire region.
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"We did have a psychiatrist for our 21 students two days week and still not meet the need. And they are for the whole region," he explained.
While Headspace is covering referrals, there is no outreach program in Tamworth.
"We've found ... that our kids aren't as willing to engage with those external mental health supports."
The inquiry continues.
