A committee fighting to keep St David’s Primary School open has said the Government should completely reassess the factors that determined it should close — not just the history and legacy component.

Close to 100 people packed into the gymnasium at the school last night to hear a summary of a presentation that will be given to the Government by a history and legacy group that has formed.

The committee is led by Russell Richardson, Ceble Crockwell, Henry Dowling, Doris Foley and Kelly Pitcher — all former students of the school.

The Government went back to the drawing board on its primary-school closure criteria to include a history and legacy component.

While the St David’s committee agrees that the primary’s legacy as the first fully integrated school should be a major consideration, it says there are other factors the Government and foreign consultant Innovation Unit got wrong in their initial assessment.

They argue that the Government was wrong in its finding that the school field was not big enough, that there was little land to build on, and that its preschool is farther away from the primary building than that of East End Primary to that school.

Dr Dowling said: “There is nothing better than St David's Primary School. It has small classrooms and the teachers are invested; that has carried on to this day. We need to save that.

“They talk about what they want to create, but that is already here. St David’s Primary School was poorly evaluated; we got hit because they didn’t feel we had enough space to build on and they didn’t know we had our own field. They need to re-evaluate.”

The committee members said that St David’s County Cricket Club field is the field for the school and that the students have priority over its use. They also said that there is plenty of land to build on surrounding the property.

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ST. DAVID’S COMMUNITY FIGHTS TO SAVE PRIMARY SCHOOL.pdf

The Government has committed to factoring history and legacy into its rescoring and meeting with school committees to hear presentations by the end of this month. However, there has been no such commitment to rescore or meet about on other factors. The committee sent a presentation on the other factors to Jasmin Smith, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education, but has not received a response.

St David’s Primary is one of eight primary schools facing the axe as part of the Government’s education reform plans, which include having one school per parish with the exception of two in Pembroke.

The committee made the case that St David’s should be considered a parish in its own right and that the school should be kept for that “parish”.

Carlton Crockwell, another former student who moderated the meeting, said there was no desire to see East End Primary — the school chosen to be the St George’s parish school — to close.

He said: “St George's can have their school but St David’s wants to have our school. We are not competing.”

Lovitta Foggo, Progressive Labour Party MP for St David’s, stood to her feet and vowed to represent the views of the committee and all present at the meeting to the Government.

Ms Foggo said: “I am happy to see so many people here. I represent you, I must be democratic for every single voice in this room.

“I am hoping that all of this spurs our young families to return their children to St David's Primary — you have residents who send their children out [to other schools].

“There was a time they were going to close the preschool in St David’s. If they close the primary school, then they are going to close the preschool. We worked behind the scenes to make certain it remained open; that is why it is still here today.

“I represent your voice, I have seen it as an educator and as a grandparent — I have seen excellence walk out of these doors.

“As your representative, I will go and fight for you, just like I did for St David's Preschool.”

Ms Crockwell added: “This school is one of the few things we have left. If we let this school close, the youth programme will diminish.

“If I have to send my child to St George’s, I am going to enrol my child in a programme in St George's because it is more convenient. It is a domino effect that has been happening for years.

“This is the one thing we cannot allow this government to close. We need to fight for our youth.”

A petition to save the school has garnered 470 signatures.

The committee said that more meetings are planned for the near future.

• To view a PDF release by the committee, see Related Media