'Mothballing' proposal for Dalry Secondary

Council officials defy local opinion

Some Dalry primary and secondary school pupils and parents outside the school.

Education officials are to ignore the results of a recent public consultation and are recommending that Dalry Secondary School should be mothballed after the summer holidays.

The news was delivered to a public meeting at the end of January to discuss the future of the school. Around 70 audience members were in attendance including parents, members of the community, community councils, ward councillors, local employers and Finlay Carson MSP.

The community was unanimously against the proposal, which flies in the face of a recent public survey which had backed keeping the school open. The process of ‘mothballing’ was likened by an audience member to “closure by stealth”.

A community voice for education

Under questioning, the education officials could give no examples of schools having reopened after mothballing, or of any criteria or process to enable them to reopen.

The survey followed a meeting on 5 December between John Thin (Head of Education, Dumfries and Galloway Council), Dalry School’s Parent Council and members of the community, to discuss the future of Dalry Secondary School.

The survey asked respondents their view on five options. Respondents were overwhelmingly in support of option 5, a return to the historic provision of nursery through to S4. It was the preferred choice for 47% of all respondents and 52% of respondents with pre-school/school age children. A total of 72% of comments received for this option were positive, far greater than the second most positively commented option, number 3 (Nursery to S2) with 41%.

Option 1 (continue as is with no change, S1-4) and option 4 (secondary closure and re-alignment) were both equally unpopular (the preferred options for only 17% of all respondents) and the majority of comments received about both options were negative.

The survey results can be found at www.glenkens.scot/glenkens-news/dalry-secondary-school-survey-results-published

However, despite the survey results, education officials told the community that they will be putting forward the mothballing proposal at the next Education and Learning Committee meeting on Thursday 14 March at 10.30am.

A parent council representative said:

"We cannot change the geography of our area; the nature of the place we have chosen to live, and to raise our children, is rural. Due to journey times, to remove higher education from the Glenkens is to sign the deth knell for families staying in, or moving to, the Glenkens. Our children have the right to an education, just like everywhere else in Scotland, and the local authority should be working to provide this, not to take it away."

It is feared that ‘mothballing’ will have hugely detrimental impacts across the communities of the Glenkens into the future.

The Parent Council is calling on all members of our Glenkens communities, as well as those living further afield with an interest in the health and wellbeing of the area, to lobby councillors who sit on the Education and Learning Committee.

You can find a list of the Education and Learning Committee members members, along with contact details, at https://dumfriesgalloway.moderngov.co.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=549.