Ruchill Primary and Our Lady of the Assumption Primary Public Meeting

Monday 26th Janaury 2009 -

Around 150  angry parents and other members of the community packed Ruchill Community Education Centre in Bilsland Drive.  Standing room only.
Both schools pledged to work together in a united campaign. The desire was expressed to keep at least one school in Ruchill, regardless of denomination, for the sake of the community.

Ruchill children face a lengthy walk through Ruchill Park to get to their alternative schools if the closure proposals go ahead. Ruchill Park is, along with Queen’s Park on the Southside, one of Glasgows best and wildest hilltop parks, but it is no place for young children travelling to school in dark winter mornings.

The distance between Ruchill and Westercommon Primary Schools is 1.5 miles.  The distance betwen Our Lady of the Assumption and St Cuthbert’s Primary Schools is 1.1 miles. The top of Ruchill is much firther away from those still.

To add insult to injury, Ruchill parents have just last year gone through a consultation to merge both their schools – plus another two from Possil – into a brand new shared campus school building. Although Glasgow City Council won’t admit it, the dirty secret is that that deal is now dead, with Ruchill left with nothing but the prospect of sending its kids 1-2 miles away into the existing equally old Hamiltonhill schools.

Territorial safety issues are a huge concern for parents.

Two Members of the Scottish Parliament and a City Councillor attended the meeting and pledged their support to the campaign.

Well done the Evening Times for sending a reporter and a photographer to the meeting, read the full article, including quotes from those at the meeting at http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2485136.0.parents_on_warpath.php

About these ads