A petition signed by 200 people objecting to proposals to shut a small primary school in Shetland was handed over to the council convener at Lerwick Town Hall yesterday.
Eight parents and three young children from the 13-pupil Urafirth primary school made the trip to Lerwick to hand over the signatures.
Support has come from as far afield as Japan and Australia.
Today, Shetland islands Council’s education and families committee meets to decide whether to shut Urafirth and North Roe primaries, with council officials recommending that pupils should be transferred to Ollaberry from summer 2015.
Councillors are also being asked to close Urafirth’s nursery class, with pre-school children instead attending nursery in Ollaberry from next August. The report estimates the three changes would save a total of £156,000 a year.
Claire Herridge, of Urafirth Parent Council, said the Northmavine community felt it was “very important to keep the schools open because we want to keep the level of education we’ve got in the schools at the moment, and the enrolment numbers are going up”.
She said the SIC’s proposal paper did not take into account the projected increase in pupil numbers to 24 beyond the 2017/18 academic year.
During a well-mannered exchange, council convener councillor Malcolm Bell sought to assure parents that their views were being listened to.
He said elected members “agonise over decisions like this” and that, while the report going before councillors this week recommends closure, no decision had yet been taken.
Mr Bell stressed that the local authority still faced real term cuts in the money it was receiving from central government.
“They’ve put up a very reasonable and balanced fight to retain their school, and that’s to be expected,” he said afterwards.
“I’ve reassured them that we will take their views seriously, and it’ll be a fair decision.”