St Mary's High School in Brollagh will remain open

by Gráinne Connolly

The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) has withdrawn its proposal to close St.Mary's High School in Brollagh, Co. Fermanagh. 

In September 2017, the school was delivered a development plan from the CCMS which stated that the school would close August 2018. 

Since then, parents and students have been lobbying by writing letters to the Department of Education and CCMS stating why the school needs to stay open and why it is beneficial to the children who attend it. 

Initially, today (November 17th) the parents action group planned to go to Bangor and hand deliver objection letters to the Department of Education, however they no longer have to.

The news has been welcomed by local parents, with the spokesperson of the 'Parents Council' stating yesterday evening:

Our acting principal Mr Bradley has just received some excellent news this afternoon.

"The CCMS have withdrawn the proposal of closure from St.Mary's with immediate effect. 

"This is outstanding news and well done to everyone involved on our action group for the many hours of hard work that was spent on fighting this proposal. 

"The threat of closure is gone!"

The Parents Action Group Secretary, Jane Weir told Q Radio: 

"We just got word this afternoon that the CCMS have withdrawn their closure proposal!! Amazing isn't it!! We had kids and parents in tears earlier they are so relieved. 

"We kept writing to the CCMS about all of the legislation breaches in their proposal...they never replied but it must have worked!"

Jane also said that they are still planning to meet with the Secretary of Education on Monday, as well as the Integrated Council on Tuesday to discuss prospects of making the school integrated and possibly introducing a cross border system. 

Sinn Féin MLA, Jemma Dolan also took to social media share this welcome news:

One of my first meetings after getting elected in March was with the Parents Council of St.Mary's Brollagh & those meetings continued into the Parents Action Group - as recent as last night! We will still meet with Derek Baker but for now this is very welcome news! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/puGwrpdReR

— Jemma Dolan (@jemma_dolan) November 16, 2017