Kids have a field day
FIFTY pupils at a Co Clare-based Steiner school were yesterday morning taught in a field in protest at the failure of Education Minister Mary Hanafin to officially recognise the school.
Teachers and parents of children attending Mol an Oige Steiner school, in Ennistymon, and Raheen Wood Steiner School, located in east Clare, had initially anticipated that the minister would have made a decision on both schools' status before the start of the new academic year.
Both schools lodged their applications last year and it is understood that the Department's New Schools Advisory Committee (NSAC) has recommended the two schools for official status.
Securing official status eliminates the need for the schools to charge fees and fundraise, while it also places schools on the Department's building programme. At Mol an Oige, parents pay €35 per child per week, with sliding scale for additional children. The school anticipates that it will have to fundraise €35,000 this year to operate the school.
Vice-principal of the nearby Ennistymon Vocational School and mother of one boy going to Mol an Oige, Mary Joyce, said: "I think it is very disappointing that a positive decision has not been made."
Local Fianna Fail TD, Timmy Dooley was at the school site yesterday: "I believe that the school has a very, very good case to be granted State recognition and I hope that the department would move quickly," he said.
Founding teacher, Una Ni Ghairbhith said yesterday: "That is what the parents find really frustrating, that you go through the process, you meet the criteria, you get recommended by the NSAC and then there isn't a decision."
