Hundreds protest local schools closure of afterschool service

MORE than 200 parents and pupils of a Drumcondra school recently held a protest to stop the closure of an on-site sibling hour and afterschool service.

At 8am last Wednesday morning (22nd), hundreds of parents and guardians of children attending Grace Park Educate Together School gathered outside the school to highlight an issue which is causing extreme stress and anxiety.

More than 70 children will see the provision of their sibling hour and afterschool services cease this summer following a unilateral decision by a new school Board of Management.

The parents say that since taking their decision, the Board of Management have repeatedly refused to meet them to discuss the matter.

This they say raises “wider concerns” about the governance of the school with parents finding it unacceptable that the Board refuses to meet the school community.

They also say the decision has come as a complete shock for the school community.

The current commercial provider has provided a continuous sibling hour and afterschool service since 2019 when the school and afterschool operated in shared prefabs.

As recently as February of this year parents had been informed by the school that a successful re-tender process had been completed for sibling hour and afterschool services, with just finer details to be worked out with the current provider to extend the service for another 3 years.

However, the Board of Management subsequently advised in March that the service would not continue and would instead cease at the end of the current contract leaving parents, guardians, and children without alternative arrangements amid a childcare crisis.

Over the past eight weeks parents and guardians have come together to try and constructively engage with the Board of Management and school to find a solution to retaining the service in the school building which only moved into its purpose-built multi-million school building in 2020.

Parents and the childcare provider have also engaged in exhaustive efforts to secure alternative locations in the area to provide a service but to no avail.

The latest proposal for a temporary extension to assist in relocating the service was rejected out of hand by the Board.

Parents impacted by the decision to close the service have voiced the impact of the school’s decision on them and their families.

Juliette O Sullivan, a parent of two children from Grace Park also using the afterschool service, told Northside People that the imminent withdrawal of the service will have an immediate personal impact on her family.

“I work for the HSE, serving in a disadvantaged area of Dublin,” she said.

“This community is grappling with high rates of deprivation, homelessness, child protection cases, and vulnerable adults.

“On a daily basis, I’ve the opportunity to deliver care to this community and I get to see how I can make real improvements to people’s lives daily.

“From speaking to other parents in our school I see this story repeated amongst the parent body in Gracepark Educate Together, our school has a diverse demographic and I see a lot of colleagues in healthcare in our community.

“With the imminent withdrawal of the afterschool service I, along with others, will have no other option but to give up my role.

“This will have an immediate personal impact on my family, and perhaps more importantly it will negatively extend into the wider community, as I and others exit from the workforce areas where staffing, already challenged, will come under further strain.

“What we’ve experienced with our Board Of Management, initially some inconsistencies in communicating the status of a tendering process, which developed into a reluctance to engage in person, to the eventual breakdown between a significant body of parents and their BoM.

“Members of a Board of Management are voluntary and in the main, they work diligently for the good of the school, its pupils and the wider community.

“However, when issues arise these can quickly lead to communication failures which cause significant stress for parents, teachers, children and the board members.

“In our case, we’ve over 75 families who are facing the loss a critical wraparound service, with new families arriving each year into the school.

“We now find ourselves at a point where we’re discovering trust is easy to lose but hard to find, not a place any parent would wish to be.

“We find ourselves in an unenviable position where a significant portion of the parent body feels their voice can only be heard by protesting outside the school gate, this is not where I thought we’d find ourselves in an Educate Together school, which prides itself on an ethos of inclusiveness, democracy and community.

“I’m still hopeful we can find a way to work with our Board Of Management, perhaps with the help of mediation we can work together to find a solution, after all our children love our school, their teachers and their afterschool.

“My wish is for this to be a sad chapter in an otherwise happy book.”

Tanya, another of the parents impacted said: “This situation is causing extreme stress and anxiety, as we must now choose between two disagreeable options.

“Do we bear the stress and strain of trying to juggle employment and childcare? Or do we bear the significant financial burden of one parent ceasing employment?”

“There is significant incongruence between the values and ethos of the school and the actual lived experience of members of the school community.

“In any organisation, leaders set themselves up to be perceived as lacking in integrity and credibility if their values are words only and are not demonstrated in their decisions and interactions.”

Caroline, one of the many parents backing the campaign who doesn’t use the afterschool service said “It goes beyond just the afterschool closure.

“Our family is an example of what happens when no easy to find or affordable childcare is available. I don’t have regular hours so cannot commit to set days and cannot find childcare.

“I have to work longer days to free time off for pick up time, I reduced my working hours and I work nearly every weekends.

“A lot of us who are not affected directly by the closure are fully supportive of the campaign.”

A spokesperson for the parent’s campaign said “Despite an extensive and constructive communication process by parents and guardians, including those who don’t use the service, the Board of Management have steadfastly refused to meet with parents individually, collectively or via a representative committee. Over 200 parents have signed letters to the Chair of the Board of Management, Kevin O’Neill.

“Parents have at all times attempted to work in good faith, in line with the values and ethos of the School and its Patron.

“To have our genuine questions and proposals for a workable solution to this crisis ignored and to be shown such contempt by the Board of Management has damaged the school community and the view of the school in many parent’s eyes.

“Ultimately, the decision by the Board negatively impacts the lives of our children and the way they have dealt with this manner has done huge damage to a school that parents fought to establish, fundraised for and previously held in high regard.”

“Due to the lack of engagement and transparency shown by the Board of Management we have been left with no option but to write to Educate Together’s CEO and Chairperson as the school patron, to ask it to investigate the Board of Management’s actions and failure to uphold the patron’s ethos. We have also sought support from our elected representatives and will be engaging with the Children’s Ombudsman.”

The Minister’s for Education, Norma Foley and Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman have also come under pressure from Mary Lou McDonald and Paschal Donohue while other local TDs such as Neasa Hourigan, Cian O’Callaghan, Sean Haughey, and Aodhan O Riordan have placed Parliamentary Questions to both Ministers.

The Minister for Expenditure, NDP delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD who also represents families in part of the school’s catchment area has written to the Minister for Education on the matter.

The parent’s spokesperson continued by saying “As a result of the questions raised by TDs and the answers provided by the Minister for Education and Minister for Children it is now clear that parents of school children across the Irish school system have limited to zero means of holding Boards of Management to account.

“This example at Grace Park Educate Together National School where a huge proportion of the school parent/guardian group is asking for direct engagement but is being ignored and stonewalled by a Board of Management raises very serious questions about the lack of accountability and complaint mechanisms available, and the absence of oversight from patrons and the Department of Education on the decisions made by Boards of Management.”