Police remove fuming parent from school closure meeting

Published on Thursday 10 September 2009 10:13

POLICE had to be called to remove an irate parent from a public meeting on the future of a city school.

Officers turned up at Drumbrae Primary after a complaint was made about the man, who shouted out comments to education bosses and interrupted the debate on the proposed closure of the school.

The man, who has two children at Drumbrae, was told repeatedly by the meeting's chairman, former deputy chief constable Tom Wood, to quieten down, but was eventually removed by officers after failing to comply. He later returned to the meeting.

A police spokesman said: "Police were called to Drumbrae Primary School following reports of a disturbance during a meeting being held at the school.

"Officers attended, and the matter was quickly resolved."

But the man was not the only disgruntled parent at the meeting, with education bosses frequently being heckled and put on the spot by parents of children at the under-threat school.

Parents accused city education leader Marilyne MacLaren and director of education Gillian Tee of running the school into the ground by failing to invest and "scaremongering" for years about school closures.

They also criticised the city's education chiefs for not doing more to find out why rolls were falling and why parents living in the catchment area were choosing to send their children to other schools.

Councillor MacLaren said parents who have "voted with their feet" were one of the reasons why the school is on the hit-list.

She said:

"The department has to make, in this next financial year, savings of 14 million which is an awful lot of money for us to cut.

"We are desperately trying to preserve our core services. I would not be saying that the idea behind these closures is to save money but I do have to put it into some kind of perspective.

"Parents have already voted with their feet and we do try to go with parental flow and this school has shown that parents were moving away and choosing to send their children elsewhere."

Ms Tee was also put on the spot by parents who accused the council of only wanting to close the school to save money.

She told them: "If money wasn't an issue then maybe that would be OK to carry on with such a small school, but money is an issue.

"We have to make significant budget savings and we literally can't afford to keep open schools that are more than half empty."

She warned that they may be forced to teach three different age groups in one class because of the small numbers.

Edinburgh's expensive tram project was also thrown into questions by members of the public, including one pupil at the school who asked: "Why don't we just give up on the Edinburgh tram line and use the money for Drumbrae?"

Children also tried to prove how important their school is to them by getting up in front of everyone and singing the school song – which includes the lines 'when you come to Drumbrae, you will want to stay' – to rapturous applause.

A second public meeting on the future of Drumbrae will take place tonight at 7pm at the Royal High School. This meeting will be aimed at the parents of children at the proposed receiving schools, East Craigs and Clermiston primaries.