News / School protests begin in Scalloway
MORE than 100 school pupils in Shetland staged a protest against the council’s proposals to consult on school closures.
The children at Scalloway junior high school took to the multicourt on Thursday morning banging drums, waving banners and chanting: “SOS! Save our school!”
The protest was organised at short notice on Facebook following local councillor Iris Hawkins’ failure the previous day to persuade her colleagues to remove the 115 pupil secondary department from its proposals.
It will continue on Saturday evening at the Scalloway gala and petition forms have been circulated throughout the area and online.
Shetland Islands Council is consulting on a plan to close five primary schools in Uyeasound, Burravoe, North Roe, Olnafirth and Sandness as well as the secondary departments in Scalloway and on Skerries.
The decision is expected to spark widespread protests in all the areas affected, most of which have already fought off three efforts to close their schools in the past decade.
Fifteen year old Scalloway pupil Rhanna Dawson said the protest had been organised at the last minute on the last day of school before the summer holidays.
“We are all very against the school being shut,” Rhanna said. “The councillors that voted for the school to shut have not thought about the best interest of the pupils at all.”
If Scalloway secondary school is closed the children will be bussed to Lerwick to attend the Anderson High School, she explained.
“A lot of the pupils really don’t like the idea of moving to Anderson because it’s a really big school. They are saying it’s not fit for purpose.”
Mrs Hawkins tried hard to reopen the schools debate in the council chamber on Wednesday, describing the suggestion to close Scalloway as “a piece of nonsense”. She said: “We will certainly have a campaign on our hands and I will be backing it.”
Several councillors voiced their amazement that Mrs Hawkins, who chairs the powerful infrastructure committee, should behave in such a parochial way the day after a two day hearing by the Accounts Commission criticising councillors’ failure to act collectively.
Councillor Alastair Cooper said: “I am disappointed that councillor Hawkins has chosen to bring this up today. We have been vilified for the last couple of days about our lack of corporate approach. Our senior councillors have a duty to follow a corporate approach.
“We have embarked upon a consultation process and we should stick with what the services committee decided and not move away from it.”
Shetland Central councillor Andrew Hughson admitted he was “struggling” between representing his local area, which includes Scalloway, and the whole of Shetland.
Fellow central councillor Betty Fullerton had no such problem. “I don’t think we would be acting in a corporate manner if we start to reverse this decision,” she said, suggesting the schools service arrange a trip for Scalloway parents to visit Anderson High School to have their fears about its condition allayed.
Mrs Hawkins was furious with her colleagues. “If we are going to say everything has to be a corporate decision then we would need to have a different election system and stand for Shetland as a whole.
“If we are going to be banged over the head about everything said to us by Audit Scotland we might as well go home,” she said, reminding councillors how they had changed their mind on where to build the new Anderson High School.
The consultation is due to begin in August and report by December. The proposals will then be sent to the Scottish government who will decide which schools should be shut.
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