Pupils face hours on bus if secondary school is mothballed
DUMFRIES and Galloway councillors are being urged to back an emergency motion that will pause plans to mothball a community high school.
If the council’s plan to mothball – or temporarily close – Dalry Secondary School is successful, some students will face a three-hour round trip to Castle Douglas High School.
Following a contentious public consultation, after which stakeholders complained that the council did not present all of the options up for consideration or consider the community’s responses, Dumfries and Galloway Council is considering mothballing the school, despite admittedly having no formal policy for mothballing secondary schools.
The council has a mothballing policy for primary schools, but a spokesperson said that it follows the guidance in the Schools
(Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 for secondaries.
According to the act, mothballing is only allowed in “very restricted circumstances”.
The act also explicitly states that mothballing cannot be used to sidestep the strict procedures for closing a school permanently.
Councils are also required to notify parents and community members “as early as possible” when a school is being considered for mothballing.
The parents and campaigners have previously expressed concerns that mothballing Dalry is an attempted “closure by stealth”, and that they have not been given enough time to prepare.
To buy time for the school, councillors Dougie Campbell and
Andy Mcfarlane have submitted an emergency motion to the council.
Due to be heard at the full council meeting today, the motion calls for an “immediate cessation of secondary school mothballing, including Dalry Secondary School, for a period agreed by full council, and for community impact assessment and alternative education options to be embedded in a secondary school mothballing policy”.
Cllrs Campbell and Mcfarlane added that mothballing can have “critically damaging consequences for equitable education provision in rural communities”.
Any decision needs to be backed by an official procedure, they added, which includes impact statements and input from all stakeholders.
To illustrate the dilemma that students and parents will face if Dalry closes, even temporarily, supporters held a demonstration last week.
They carried a group that included local councillors and media on a round trip between Knockengorroch – the most northerly area in the Dalry catchment area – and Castle Douglas High School, where students will be transferred if Dalry closes.
Although navigation apps and the council estimate the trip to take roughly 45 minutes, travellers on the day timed it to one-and-a-half hours.
When the council sent out an “engagement survey” over the winter holiday period, parents were presented with five options: no change to school operations, change Dalry to a school only for S1 and S2 pupils, creating a school for pupils from nursery to S2, closing the secondary school or creating an “all-through” school for pupils from nursery to S4.
The fifth and final option was added on at the parents’ request and was the only one to win majority support.
Despite the results of the survey in January, it became clear that the council’s preferred course of action was to mothball Dalry Secondary School, although this had not been presented as an option to stakeholders.
When the council meets this week, supporters of the mothballing plan will be met with strong opposition from the community and the councillors supporting them.
Linda Dorward, Scottish Labour councillor for Lochar, said that the bus trip was “extremely insightful” and illustrated the amount of time that students will lose every day in the trip to Castle Douglas.
“This is a big decision for Dumfries with serious ramifications for the area.
This is a big decision for Dumfries with serious ramifications for the area
Minds may be better utilised looking at how we can keep Dalry Secondary open.”
A spokesperson for Dumfries and Galloway Council said that the estimated travel times for the students are not out of the ordinary.
“Given our rurality, it is not uncommon for learners to face journey times of around an hour to get to and from secondary school. This is still well below some of our comparator local authorities, where some learners face journey times of greater than one and a half hours to get to and from their school base.
“We will work with the parents, carers and young people to determine the most effective and efficient way for young people to reach their school base.”