The closure of Allison House, a high school student accommodation in Broken Hill has been met with disappointment from the Isolated Children's Parents' Association (ICPA) of NSW.

ICPA-NSW was formed over 50 years ago due to the closure of student hostel accommodation in Bourke and it was realised that geographically isolated children had significant challenges accessing their compulsory education.

This latest closure is like history repeating itself.

Britt Anderson lives at Cymbric Vale Station near Broken Hill and is the ICPA NSW Publicity Officer and an active member of the group.

She was instrumental in creating and distributing a survey to members in the far west, seeking feedback on the closure. Ms Anderson said the shut down came with little notice.

"I think was about halfway through term one," Ms Anderson said. "The Board of Allison House notified parents of the students that were staying in the hostel that it would be closed at the end of the term, so they essentially had about a month's notice to make different arrangements for their child for the rest of the year."

Ms Anderson said that because Allison House is a private entity and not actually attached to school, it makes it very hard for the Department of Education to step in and take over.

She said it was disappointing that more hadn't been done to prevent the closure of the only student boarding facility in town.

"Without asking the public for help, or the local council or ICPA or the local member for the area or anything like that, the Board made the decision on their own and closed Allison House down," she said.

"For a number of years, our members have identified that New South Wales needs another public boarding school, because there are only three in the state, one of which is boys only."

"So what ICPA decided to do is get a survey out to as many people as physically possibly in the far west region, anywhere from Dubbo and west."

The respondents were residents in the following council areas: Balranald, Bourke, Brewarrina, Central Darling, Cobar, Unincorporated Far West NSW, Wentworth, Unincorporated South Australia and Bulloo Queensland.

Ms Anderson said questions included if people were aware of Allison House, if they were concerned about the closure and ascertaining where children would go to board now.

"The survey was out for seven weeks, purely because we wanted as many people to fill it out as possible. We closed the survey last Wednesday, and then obviously the survey pulled out some results from there."

When asked ‘are you aware of the service offered by Allison House Student Accommodation in Broken Hill?’ 83% of respondents said yes and 92% of those said they are concerned about the closure.

Around 37% of respondents said that they would consider Allison House as an option for their child/ren and another 38% of those families have indicated they would consider an active role on the Allison House Board or operating committee.

The survey also asked, ‘if there was a Public Boarding School in Western NSW, would you consider sending your child/ren there?’ 74% of respondents said they would.

Ms Anderson said a media release had been sent to politicians, people in power, and "anybody that we could possibly think of."

Tanya Mitchell, ICPA – NSW President said that for a number of years ICPA members have been asking state council to advocate for another Government Boarding School.

"We know that there are waiting lists at the two agricultural high schools and this survey gives us a bigger picture of the needs of our most remote families in Far West NSW, including the need for alternative accommodation such as a student hostel,” she said.

"Anything ICPA-NSW can do to raise awareness and highlight the needs in communities is the reason we did the survey.”