Students fight to keep secondary school open

The 80-year-old learning facility, formerly known as St. Jarlath’s Vocational School, faces closure as a mainstream school, due to dwindling enrolment. It plans to turn its attention to third level further education and training instead.

The bombshell news was dropped last week causing anger and confusion in the school community. But students of the school, with the support of parents, have channelled their frustration into efforts to save the school through increased recruitment.

They have set-up an online petition and campaign to try to boost enrolment numbers – appealing to youngsters in the area to opt to go to first year at Coláiste an Chreagáin so that its Board of Management might reverse its decision to focus on further education and training.

“Our school has been open for over 80 years, and was one of the first rural schools in the country. If you are going into first year this September we ask you to please consider Coláiste an Chreagáin as an option for you, or if you know somebody who is currently in sixth class, please make them aware of our fantastic school,” the students’ petition says.

The school was opened in 1932 but it was confirmed last week that it will cease accepting first years and transition year students due to low projected intake for September 2017.

Students currently in first and second year, will continue to be schooled there until they finish their junior cycle, when they will then have to move to another school. Those already in the senior cycle and third year, will be accommodated to complete their Leaving Cert and second level education.

Coláiste an Chreagáin plans to phase out its mainstream secondary education by 2019, by which time it will be completely focused on pre-college courses, apprenticeships and post-leaving cert courses or PLCs.

On current numbers, there will be just 45 mainstream students at the school come September.

However, parents claim that some 16 new students had committed to joining first year in September until the GRETB (formerly the VEC) and the Department of Education “pulled the rug from under” ongoing efforts to save the school.

The school has been described by parents as “like a family”, and they have vowed to fight the decision.

Even principal Ann Marie Carroll said she would like to see the school remain open as a mainstream educator but the figures don’t stack up.

“Coláiste an Chreagáin would love to continue the mainstream education and serve the needs of community –  as it currently stands we do not have the sufficient numbers on the books. It’s a cruel way of looking at it but that’s the reality,” she said.

She said there has been a “continuous decline” in the number of mainstream students enrolling in the past few years.

That in turn has a negative impact on staffing levels, and erodes the school’s teaching allocation, she said.

She said the Board of Management met to consider the challenge faced by declining enrolment but the GRETB and the Department of Education “were not in a position to provide the staffing that we needed to provide a broad mainstream curriculum for our students that we were looking at in the incoming first year.”

She said there was growing demand for further education and training and Coláiste an Chreagáin was ideally placed and has already secured links with local further and higher education institutions to provide a wide range of pre-apprenticeship course and pre-college courses.

“The figures we had were unsustainable. Should the figures dramatically increase, that would be a matter for the Board of Management to consider, but as it currently stands, the figures that we had, for our perspective incoming first years, was not significant for us to sustain the mainstream side of the house by intaking first years,” said Ms Carroll.

The students have used an online petition to highlight the reasons why it should remain open. The petition points out how there is a wide variety of sports on offer at the school including basketball, football, soccer, hurling, swimming, table tennis, athletics, handball and horse riding.

“Unless we increase the amount of first year students enrolled in Coláiste an Chreagáin for September 2017, then our beloved school must stop its mainstream education service. This means that our school will be unable to provide second level education for the current first and second year students and they will be forced to move school,” the petition added.