Protesters against the proposed closure of Gartsherrie Primary School in Coatbridge have referred North Lanarkshire Council’s Learning & Leisure department to the Information Commissioner after documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act were not received.
Parents Association Chairman Kay Rowat requested a copy of the controversial building survey, being used as part of the proposal to close the school, on December 2nd. Under Freedom of Information regulations North Lanarkshire Council had until Friday to release the document.
After the deadline passed Mrs. Rowat complained to the council and referred the matter to the Information Commissioner. Mrs. Rowat said ‘We have followed the correct procedures after our verbal requests for this document were refused. The information held in the survey is a crucial part of the council’s recommendation to close our school yet they have refused us details. Officials haven’t been able to confirm exactly how old the survey is, only that it is around eight years old. We would like to see it to confirm exactly when it was done so that we can make accurate representations to the consultation.’
Mrs. Rowat also requested a copy of minutes taken at the public meeting held at the school on 30th November 2009. She said ‘I feel it is important to review these minutes as these will be used by the learning & leisure committee members while they are making their decision as to which way to vote. We really must make sure these minutes are an accurate reflection of the meeting. I asked Ron Dufeur(Education Officer) for a copy when I met with him and was told I was not entitled to it, but he couldn’t tell me why not. You have to wonder what it is they are trying to hide.’
The deadline for submissions to the consultation is Friday and objectors are concerned the information is being deliberately withheld from them until after this date. Audrey McFarlane, secretary of the parents association, said ‘I have been surprised at the lack of cooperation from North Lanarkshire Council. We have struggled to get any information from them and what they have supplied has been vague at best. It seems they are deliberately withholding the items we need, even when doing so breaks the law. We need the building survey and the minutes of the public meeting before the 15th and time is running out now. I fully expect the information to arrive on the 16th so we can’t use it to make our case for keeping the school open.’
The proposal has proven unpopular with residents of Coatbridge with over 5,500 letters of objection being received by learning & leisure services so far.
:ENDS:
For further information contact Kay Rowat on 07885 231953
Copies of requests and confirmation of requests are available
Show your support for the parents and pupils of the above school currently fighting to keep their school from closing. Either send a txt of support or give them a wee call.
A group of parents have ended their sit-in at a threatened school in North Lanarkshire.
Five protesters refused to leave St Matthew’s Primary School in Wishaw. The four parents and a grandmother began the protest just after 3pm on Thursday when pupils left the building for the day and took resident in a parents’ room.
They left at approximately 9am on Friday morning.
Christine McGeechan, who has two grandchildren at the school, joined the protest along with her daughter Helen Lamb.
She told STV News: “We were going to stay in as long as it was needed, but I was told that because I, along with another mother, did not have a Disclosure Scotland form, they would have to send the children to another school today unless we left.
“We didn’t want the children to go to another school. We did what we set out to do. We came in as five and decided to leave as five.”
The protest is one of a number staged by campaigners in Scotland in the last year as local authorities, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, were faced with falling rolls and tighter budgets.
Last year North Lanarkshire Council approved budget cuts of £15million. The local authority announced a public consultation on the school closures – which ends on Friday – blaming a fall in school rolls and expensive building repair costs as the reasons behind the plans.
As an alternative, children at the Catholic school – which lies in the shadow of Ravenscraig – would be relocated to two others, St Brendan’s or St Thomas.
The council is also proposing to close Gartsherrie in Coatbridge, Belvidere in Bellshill and St Francis of Assisi, Cumbernauld.
North Lanarkshire Council has defended the proposals saying the school is well under-capacity with only 100 out of a possible 308 pupils attending the school, which is based between the communities of Craigneuk and Wishawhill.
They said there are a total of 700 empty spaces at schools in Wishaw
A helpful guide for opposing school closures can be found here.
Parents at a closure-threatened primary school in North Lanarkshire have occupied the building and are refusing to leave.
Four women are staging the sit-in at St Matthew’s Primary in Wishaw.
They are angry at proposals by North Lanarkshire Council which could see the school shut, along with three others in the region.
The council said education officials were going to St Matthew’s to in a bid to resolve the situation.
The protesters told BBC Scotland they had sleeping bags and food and were determined to remain in the school.
A public consultation on the school closures is due to end on Friday.
Parents at the other threatened primaries – Belvidere in Bellshill, Gartsherrie in Coatbridge and St Francis of Assisi, Cumbernauld – have also staged protests, held meetings and arranged petitions in a bid to keep the schools open.
PARENTS fighting to keep St Matthew’s Primary open have turned to the internet in a bid to get their message across.
A “Save St Matthew’s” page has been set up on a Bebo website to get parents and friends involved in the battle to save the school.
Almost 200 people have signed up to show their support in the short time that the web page has been up and running.
Maureen Phillips left a message saying: “I went to this school, it’s part of the community of Craigneuk so everyone stick together and fight this. Save our school!”
James Graham Marshall said: “This was a great school, had some good years there.”
Lesley Stafford wrote: “All my family went to this school, it was a great school.”
Another message says: “We don’t need the so-called local councillors, we have the people behind us.”
One lady wrote: “Please show you support for St Matthew’s, I went to this school and so did my kids.”
A mother wrote: “This isn’t closing down without a fight. My wee lassie has just started and isn’t going anywhere else, and my other wee girl starts in a year’s time. Save our school, St Matthew’s all the way!”
Culture & Sport Glasgow told Steve Koepplinger, who’s a local activist in Maryhill, that he must get a Level 2 coaching certificate before he can help kids play tennis.
When he asked them to send that in writing it came back saying “we advise”, and “recommend” – tisk tisk!
He already has a Level 2 in athletics.
These qualifications cost about a couple of hundred pounds upwards, and you can only get them from the lawn tennis association.
The guy has spent a few hundred pounds of his own money already trying to fix football pitches up here, amongst other things.
The Lord Provost (Bob Winters) said he has tried to get answers from Culture & Sport but is being ignored. So much for the benefits of these ‘arms length’ organisations then, eh Bob? The ones that WE fund!
Support for amateur coaches
Raised by: Stephen Koepplinger on 06 January 2010
Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the arrangements which allow individuals who have undergone satisfactory police checks but who do not have a national governing body level 2 coaching certificate to access community resources (funding as well as sports facilities and equipment) in the same way as those who do have such a qualification in order to increase the breadth and number of coaches available to work with young people across the range of sports activities.
The plan will see the merger of two primary schools for physical impairment in the north and south east of Glasgow – Kelbourne and Richmond Park.
The new school will be housed in the Kelbourne building, with children transferring in August 2010.
Two primaries for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in East Kilbride and the north of Glasgow – Nerston and Greenview – will merge in February and relocate to the former Hampden building by August 2010.
Hampden School, which caters for primary children with complex learning difficulties, will move to the former Richmond Park building from August 2010.
Councillor Jonathan Findlay, executive member for education, said the changes would improve school provision for children with additional support needs.
“The central fault in the responses to Petition PE1267 from both Glasgow City Council [GCC] and the Scottish government is that they ignore the vast majority of issues raised in the petition, focusing exclusively on the issue of consultation. “
Alex Salmond was accused yesterday of sacrificing his Education Secretary in order to avoid a no-confidence vote in Fiona Hyslop which he seemed certain to lose.
The First Minister bowed to the inevitable and demoted Ms Hyslop rather than face defeat at the hands of opposition parties that were prepared to force his hand later this week.
Mr Salmond has previously said that he would regard any such move against any of his ministers as a vote of no confidence in his government, which would step down, potentially triggering a Holyrood election.
The threat had so far worked on budgets and the release of the Lockerbie bomber because the opposition feared that the SNP, which is in minority government, would be re-elected with more MSPs.
Parents at closure-threatened primary schools in North Lanarkshire have vowed to fight the proposals.
Gartsherrie Primary in Coatbridge Belvidere in Bellshill, St Francis of Assisi, Cumbernauld, and St Matthews in Wishaw could shut under council plans.
Falling rolls and the poor state of some of the accommodation have been cited as the reasons for closure.
However, parents have been organising petitions and holding protests in a bid to keep the schools open.
Proposals to shut the four primaries were drawn up after a review of the schools estate earlier this year.
Reports presented to councillors last month showed they were operating at significantly under capacity.
Ahead of a public meeting on Monday to discuss the closure proposal for Garsherrie Primary, more than 150 pupils and parents marched to the council’s education headquarters in Coatbridge to hand in about 4,000 objection letters.
Protesters against the proposed closure of Gartsherrie Primary School in Coatbridge have referred North Lanarkshire Council’s Learning & Leisure department to the Information Commissioner after documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act were not received.
