Folk living in rural Shetland are being asked to join a show of strength in support of their local schools in a bid to halt the council’s closure programme.
The campaign group Communities United for Rural Education (CURE) is planning a march through central Lerwick at 11am on Saturday, June 7 starting and ending at the Market Cross.
Organisers are keen to stress the march will be a celebration of their rural schools and are asking people to turn up in “community dress”, whether that be an Up Helly Aa suit or a sports kit.
However, the march has been deliberately scheduled two days ahead of Shetland Islands Council’s decision on the fate of Sandwick junior high school on Monday, June 9.
CURE argue Shetland’s rural schools have been built up over many years with excellent teaching facilities for nursery, primary and secondary pupils, with well-equipped leisure facilities nearby.
They say that this has attracted families to move to rural Shetland and closing schools will reverse this trend, promoting a drift to Lerwick and Brae where housing is already in short supply and house prices are rising.
CURE wants rural education to continue until the age of 16 with the option for pupils to move on to high school, college, apprenticeships or the workplace.
CURE secretary Gordon Thomson said there was great concern throughout Shetland that if the council votes to turn Sandwick into an S1-2 school it will have a “domino effect”.
The SIC is recommending that S3 and 4 pupils at Sandwick move to Lerwick’s Anderson High School.
They are also consulting on doing the same thing in Aith, Whalsay, Yell and Unst, as well as closing primary schools in Sandness, Urafirth, North Roe and Burravoe.
A motion signed by 11 councillors to postpone the council’s plans for secondary education, which was withdrawn from a council meeting last week, may be presented at the SIC’s education and families committee meeting on 9 June.