There are fears over the future of smaller and rural schools after the council launched a consultation on the learning estate and warned things “will have to change”.
Councillors agreed in 2018 to a “transformation programme” to address issues surrounding a “significant funding gap”, sub-standard schools and an ageing and declining population.
Andrew O’ Halloran, regional association secretary for the EIS union, said: “While the EIS is aware of some of the challenges facing Dumfries and Galloway Council in terms of the deplorable state of much of the school estate and the extreme rurality of the local authority, we would oppose any school closures on purely financial grounds.
“Rationalisation of the school estate should not be a cost-cutting exercise, rather the focus should be on ensuring excellent facilities for children and young people across the whole of Dumfries and Galloway.
“The public should recall that teachers’ working conditions are pupils’ learning conditions.
“There are many small rural schools in our area and we hope that these proposals do not lead to closures.”
In a press release the council said they were embarking on a consultation to “consolidate and modernise” the school estate.
It said: “Dumfries and Galloway Council’s school estate, our school buildings and how we use them, will have to change over the coming years to respond to changes in our communities.
“We continue to spend more per child in some of our schools compared to the national average, and there is a large range of disproportionate costs across our own school estate.
“We know our school rolls are falling across Dumfries and Galloway, that the condition and suitability of some of our school buildings may not be at the standards we want them to be, and that we have many more classrooms than we need in many places.
“This is an opportunity to consolidate and modernise our learning estate with a focus on sustainability and to protect the education of the children and young people in our schools. In order to identify whether making changes to our school estate will have the desired impact, we begin by seeking to create a consensus through consultation on the most important principles that need to be considered to deliver a truly future-proofed school estate.”
Education committee chairman, Councillor Richard Brodie, said: “We are currently engaged with school communities to plan the best way forward for our children.
“We must seize upon the challenge of falling school rolls to provide quality educational experiences in schools fit for the 21st century.”
Vice chairman, Councillor Maureen Johnstone said: “If we have a set of shared principles that we have worked together with communities on setting out, this would help us start to see where change might be needed.
The school model consultation can be found at www.dumgal.gov.uk/schoolmodel.
