Saturday 20 June 2009

GLASGOW SAVE OUR SCHOOLS CAMPAIGN CONDEMNS COUNCIL FOR CAUSING CHAOS IN FINAL WEEK OF SCHOOL TERM

Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign

The Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign has reacted with rage at the chaos caused to kids, carers, parents and staff in the final week of term in the 22 schools and nurseries facing permanent closure. Glasgow Labour council tried to shut the schools two days prematurely, on Wednesday 24th, and just days before this was due to happen, reversed their plan, throwing people’s lives into turmoil.

Glasgow Save Our Schools Campaign organiser, Richie Venton, today said:

“The Labour council are not only butchers of our kids’ education, but obscene in their haste to bury the schools, and utterly incompetent into the bargain.

“They have been traumatising kids by sending council vans to pick up furniture, smart boards, paperwork and other equipment as the kids spend their final weeks at schools they love.

“Then they unilaterally decided to shut the schools two days earlier than everywhere else in the city, punishing parents and carers who had to disrupt work and holiday plans, forking out money to get their kids cared for at very short notice.

“Now, after our campaign raised hell about this in our meeting with the Scottish government’s Education Minister last week, the council belatedly declare on Friday 19th that they actually never had permission off the government to shut the schools on Wednesday 24th, so they will stay open until Friday 26th! So they are having to draft in supply teachers and other staff to occupy the kids for the final days of term.

“What about parents and carers who had managed to get time off work, or changed their holidays at short notice, or paid out for childcare for the final two days of the school year?

“Will they be compensated by the vindictive, incompetent axe-wielders in the Labour city council, who have treated kids, communities and school staff with utter contempt on every front over the past 6 months in their crazed rush to cut costs?

“If parents withdrew their kids from school without good reason, or chopped and changed when their kids went to school, they’d face fines. That’s the very least the Labour councillors deserve; the sack would be more appropriate punishment!”

For more info contact Richie Venton on 07828 278 093 or at richieventon@hotmail.com

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