Back School closure debate 26/6/08
A tight decision with a one vote majority axed Back school at 9 pm on Wednesday night .
Councillor Kenny Maciver fought to upgrade Back secondary to a three-year secondary under a pilot project.
He was willing to reconsider closure in the future with “the carrot of a new Nicolson and not the stick of expediency.”
He insisted Back had a viable school with stable rolls and new families moving in.
Back was earmarked for final closure in 2011 and he urged using the time to test out a S3 development “instead of squeezing the life of out these schools one by one.”
Education chair Morag Munro said the result would be 21st Century schools instead of pouring “repair money to keep the schools open resulting in deteriorating buildings.”
She suggested the council already knew the result of any pilot: “It will tell us we cannot expand to S3 without significant resources, both in staff and equipment.
“We are already spending £ 7 million above our assessed needs. The money would have to come from somewhere else. Will it be roads, will it be community care?”
Education vice-chair and Back councillor Catriona Stewart criticised her own committee’s consultation document stressing the new Nicolson Institute “will certainly not be ready” by 2011 for displaced pupils.
Despite voting to shut earlier schools she did a U-turn and urged the reprieve of Back school
Archie Campbell found it “astonishing that members who found it so easy to close S1 S2 schools” in other areas now adopted tactics to save their own ward schools.
Vice convenor Angus Campbell pointed out that £ 12 million of road and capital funding would be spent on the new schools if the rural units do not shut.
He said: “It is time we have principles and vision to show we know what we are doing, otherwise we become a laughing stock.”
He warned that road improvements as well as “community care, community support and our children right across the Western Isles” will suffer if cash is switched just to “prove a political point.”
“Taking funds away from the most vulnerable to try and do something we know as a council is not the way forward.”
