Parents of children at St. Mary’s High School, Brollagh have reacted with “uproar” to the latest proposal to close the rural school.

The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) has submitted a proposal to the Education Authority that St. Mary’s, Brollagh will close from August 31, 2018.

READ: Brollagh group resists plan to send pupils to Enniskillen

The school has an enrolment of 84 pupils and a deficit of £718,143.
This is the second time in recent years that CCMS has recommended the closure of the school.

In 2014, the then Education Minister John O’Dowd decided not to agree to the school’s closure and called for CCMS and the Education Authority to bring forward a pilot scheme which would allow Brollagh to work with schools on the other side of the border.

READ: Brollagh closure plan rejected by Education Minister

Vice chairman of St. Mary’s Brollagh parent’s council Frank Maguire claimed that parents had to submit a series of Freedom of Information requests seeking correspondence between CCMS and the Department for Education. “We discovered that senior officials in CCMS were of the view that they didn’t want to get the hopes of the local community up and [the cross-border option] wasn’t viable because they questioned the quality of education that would have been produced,” said Mr. Maguire.

The most recent Education Minister, Peter Weir, told the Assembly last year: “I think that there was analysis that the cross-Border approach would neither be cost-effective nor its quality threshold assured. That clearly did not appear to be a runner. [It] simply does not appear to be doable.”

READ: Brollagh Cross-border plan 'not a runner'

The local community does not agree and they have pledged they “will not go down without a fight.”

“There is uproar,” said Mr. Maguire. “We see yet again that CCMS has an agenda to close the school. They are only focusing on the deficit and the enrolment but this school is part of the community and if it goes, the young people will leave, which will have a negative impact on the local community.”
He added: “Our children would be expected to travel between 56-60 miles per day, over an hour each way, to Enniskillen, leaving at 7.30am and not returning until 5pm. That is totally unfair. The Bain report states that no child should have to travel more than 45 minutes each way to school.”
Mr. Maguire called on as many people as possible to respond to the eight week consultation and said: “We are the most westerly school in the UK. Nowhere in the UK would a child be asked to travel as far to school as ours would be if St. Mary’s is closed.”
Newcomer to the area, Danielle McDonagh said the rural schooling system was one of the area’s main attractions. Her son Odhran started first year in St. Mary’s this month.
“We are all shocked. If the school closed it would cause so much disruption. Odhran has an allergy and requires an EpiPen so I like being close by him and only a few minutes from the school.”
She added: “It’s hard enough to get them psyched up for secondary school and now this; Enniskillen would be a big scary school for these children. I would seriously consider Ballyshannon rather than Enniskillen. I love the teachers at Brollagh and Odhran is very happy there.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Anthony Felly, who has two children at the school, said: “As a parent I am disappointed with CCMS and we are not going to go down without a fight.”
Former pupil Jemma Dolan, a Sinn Féin MLA, said: “I moved to Mount Lourdes for A Levels and I found it traumatic. These are young pupils who are only just coming to terms with leaving primary school.
“The local community here rallied around before and we will rally around again.”
Principal Michael Quigley declined to comment.