PUPILS from Scalloway Junior High School handed in a petition with 1,100 signatures to Shetland Islands Council convener Sandy Cluness on Tuesday morning urging the education authority not to close their secondary department.
The petition has been signed by a large number of the people living in Scalloway and its surrounding villages.
The council is proposing to close the secondary department and bus its 116 pupils to Lerwick’s Anderson High School under its Blueprint for Education strategy, which would see the closure of two secondary departments and five primary schools across the isles. The move would help the council save up to £6 million annually.
Fourteen year old Kirsty Uttley said some signatures had been collected online, but the majority were gathered in the traditional way through shops, pubs and approaching people.
She said that the community’s opposition to the council plans was overwhelming. Last month, almost 300 people attended a statutory consultation meeting, hosted by the council’s schools service.
“The petition asks councillors to vote not to close the secondary department of the school, because it is an excellent school.
“It is an excellent school for pupils to learn at, and an excellent school for the whole community; it is part of the community. So we really do hope that councillors will take that into consideration when they are due to make their decision,” she said
Mr Cluness said he was sure the petition would make an impact and promised that it would be taken into consideration when councillors sit down at the end of November to make a decision on the school’s future.
He said: “Almost everybody in Scalloway must have signed this petition. It demonstrates how anxious people in the village are to retain their school. We will have to give that due consideration.”
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