After the Save Our Schools march from Totland to Freshwater on Saturday, we caught up with organiser of the demo, Charlotte Snook.
Over 200 people attended the march, which was organised within a couple of days after proposals for the council to close at least 22 Island primary schools was announced. The march saw not only parents, but other concerned members of the community join together to voice their opinions.
The number of people who made it out on this very cold and windy day at short notice, just goes to show how passionate people are about maintaining the primary schools in villages.
Charlotte raises some poignant points during our chat, the most striking regarding the cost of redundancy pay, transport and costs associated with updating and building extra wings on those schools which would have to accommodate increased number of pupils.
She questioned how Southern Vectis would be able to cope with the increase to numbers of pupils having to be shipped around the Island, when their fleet was not big enough already. You might’ve already heard about the many pupils having to ride in open top buses during wet and windy weather which raises some serious health and safety concerns.
Charlotte also told us how she been informed by a member of the council that the £2 million it would cost to keep the primary schools open, was only 2% of education budget. If it’s true, sounds like a drop in the ocean.
What is clear in all this is that the changes are financially driven and some feel the council are making these changes to try and claw back revenue with primary schools bearing the brunt.
Click on the play button to listen to the podcast. [audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/charlotte-snook-interview-totlandschools-emo.mp3]
