A public meeting will be held in Coláiste an Chreagáin in Mountbellew next Tuesday, as parents and students try to garner wider community support to save the school.
There is an open invite to the community to attend and County Councillors and Oireachtas members have been issued written invitations to the April 18 meeting, which begins at 7.30pm.
The public meeting is in response to plans by the school’s board of management to cease taking students as of this September, 2017, and to ‘wind down’ the mainstream education side of the secondary school.
The plan is to focus solely on third level further education and training as of 2019, when the current first, second and third years will have completed their Junior Certificate, and the fourth and fifth will have completed their Leaving Cert.
The move, which was announced a fortnight ago, is being resisted by parents and students.
Fourth Year student, Regan Maher, from Newbridge, told the Connacht Tribune that the meeting was being organised to dispel the preconceived notions the wider community has about Coláiste and Chreagáin.
“People tend to think our school is for people with less ability or for those who are not as academic as those who go to the other schools around us but that is just not the case,” said Regan, who represents County Galway on the national executive of Comhairle na nÓg.
“I’d like people to come to the meeting, leave their preconceived notions at the door and come to the meeting and hear about what the school is really like.”
Regan is one of a committee of about a dozen who have set-up an online campaign to save the school.
She was among a group of students who were accompanied by parents on Monday who travelled to Portumna to hand deliver invitation letters to the county’s politicians to attend next Tuesday’s meeting. They have written to President Michael D Higgins inviting him to visit the school.
Regan explains that the school is more like a family rather than your typical school.
At Christmas, for example, the local priest and board of management in the school, broke bread together with teachers and students who had cooked a Christmas turkey dinner feast.
And why is it such a special school worth saving?
“We are like a family . . . there is no trouble here, there are no discipline problems and there is no bullying,” said Regan.
Students can play a whole variety of sports and there are many opportunities for extracurricular activities.
She had high praise for the dedication of the teachers at the school, also.
Regan recalled falling behind in her maths class but her teacher stayed behind and put in extra, voluntary hours to tutor her and bring her up to speed.
The same is true with other teachers who go above and beyond the call of duty to help students with extra lessons after hours, she said.
If the school does close, then the alternatives are St Cuan’s in Castleblakeney or Holy Rosary Mountbellew.
But as Regan points out, they are not ideal options.
“There is one student in first year now who wants to be an engineer and who is studying metal work – he will not be able to continue to do metal work in either of those schools. What will he do?”
John Cunningham, a parent and member of the campaign committee to save the school, said the manner in which the bombshell news was dropped, by text and then letter, a fortnight ago, caused panic and distress.
“Some of the children were doing oral Irish exams that week. It was incredibly bad timing, and caused a lot of upset,” he said.
Mr Cunningham said there are 16 children firmly committed to enrolling in first year in September but this announcement was designed to “scatter them”.
He said the school is a safe and happy environment for the children attending, and the teachers are first class. “They are doing fantastic stuff up there. This announcement has caused huge distress,” he said.
Mr Cunningham urged people to attend Tuesday’s meeting.
The school was opened in 1932 but it was confirmed last week that the school will cease accepting first years and transition year students due to low projected intake for September 2017.
Students have set-up an online petition and campaign to try to save the school by boosting numbers – they have appealed 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.
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