Ahead of tonight’s Parent Forum meeting at Carisbrooke College, councillor for Newport North, Matthew Price, shares his views on the proposals to close the College. In his own words. Ed
Newport North Isle of Wight County Councillor Cllr Matt Price is calling for all Councillors to back Carisbrooke College in the face of Hampshire County Council recommendation that the school be closed.
Matt said,
“I’m calling on my fellow Councillors to back Carisbrooke College to stay open and vote against Hants CC recommendation to close the school. It’s a good and improving school and has strong leadership. Parents and teachers back it. We don’t need another reorganisation at this time.”
Cllr Price continued,
“The recommendation to close Carisbrooke ignores so many important facts heard at the Council’s Scrutiny committee.
“We were promised an open, fair and transparent consultation and sadly this has not been what we were given. It quickly became clear that the consultation was not a level playing field. It was clear that either Medina or Carisbrooke School were earmarked for closure from the start. I believed that this was wrong.
“This consultation in the view of many was suggestive from the outset and the mere mention of mergers and closures put an unnecessary bias on the outcome. The public consultation would have looked far different if these options had not been there.”
More support should have been given
Cllr Price added,
“I wonder why more help from Hampshire has not been given to the Island Innovation Trust to help strengthen their case, why has more detail not been offered by Hampshire Officers regarding the inevitable costs of closing a school and where that financial impact will rest. Where is the help from Hants CC to strengthen their case?
“A merger isn’t a merger – it’s a closure. The Island Innovation Trust made it quite clear from the start that any merger could not and would not work. I believe closing one school and moving its operations to another site would cause a huge reorganisation, terrible educational disruption for the students, massive logistical problems for both sites and ultimately many redundancies. The huge burden of debt would eventually lead into the finances of the other school. I have said many times this was never a merger, it was always about closing one of these schools.”
He finished by saying,
“I hope my fellow Councillors will take a balanced view and not just vote through the recommendation as it is. There are many more reasons to keep this school open than there are to close it. For these reasons, I will be asking the council to support Option 1, as this addresses the surplus places issue and will allow this school to continue down its path of further success and I will propose this at Full Council. I hope Councillors from all corners of the chamber will support me on this.”
Image: dwonderwall under CC BY 2.0
